\M^\ 


a 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE 


THEOKY   OF   PRACTICE. 


LONDON : 
ROBSON  AND  SONS,  PRINTERS,  PANCRAS  ROAD.  N.W. 


THE 


THEORY  OF  PRACTICE 


AN 


(Etdifnl  €npirt) 


IN  TWO  BOOKS 


BY 


SHADWORTH  H.  HODGSON. 


'       >    ,  '     ,     5      t      •«  ,         ,    »  '  o   t       ,  r     •  , 


>  3 


r^   ,->  3^'    3.  ,-3 ',  ,'^  : 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  IL 


LONDON: 
LONGMANS,   GREEN,   READER,  AND  DYER. 

1870. 

[Reserve  of  Rights.1 


«     «     e  c  * 


3J 

/oos 

V.  wv^ 


THE 


THEORY  OF  PRACTICE. 

BOOK  II.— SYSTEMATIC. 

THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


VIE  PIU  CHE'  'nDAENO  DA  BIVA  SI  PARTE, 

PERCHE  NON  TORNA  TAL,  QUAL  EI  SI  MUOVE, 
CHI  PESCA  PER  LO  VERO,  E  NON  HA  L'aRTE. 


CONTENTS  OF  BOOK  IT. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PKACTICE. 


76.  The  method  of  volition 

77.  Instances  of  this  method 


PAGE 

3 
16 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


78.  The  Bunnnum  Bonum  in  Ethic 

79.  The  Motive  in  Ethic      . 

80.  The  Criterion  in  Ethic 

81.  Comparison  of  this  with  other  systems 

82.  On  the  appHcation  of  this  logic 

83.  Relation  of  the  criterion  to  happiness 


20 
31 
;35 
•li 
52 
(i7 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


84.  The  relation  of  Ethic  and  Law 

85.  The  ends  of  Law  . 

86.  The  criteria  and  motives  of  Law 


7!) 
88 
92 


VIU 


CONTENTS  OF  BOOK  II. 


§ 

87.  The  motives  of  society 

88.  The  spontaneous  organisation  of  society 

89.  The  voluntary  organisation  of  society 

90.  Analysis  and  classification  of  Law 

Public  Law    .... 
Ci\dl  Law       .... 
Procedure  and  Evidence 
Table  of  the  General  Classes  of  Law 

91.  Policy 


PAGE 

95 
100 
130 
167 
171 
180 
210 
213 
213 


CHAPTER  IV. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


92.  Practical  sciences  and  Arts  of  Action 

Cultus  and  Theology 
Criticism  and  Fine  Art 
Art  of  War 
Diplomacy 
Medicine 
Education 

93.  Pliilology   . 

Parts  of  speech 
Liflection  and  Syntax 
Style 

94.  Political  Economy 

95.  Statical  Logic  of  Exchange- 

96.  Statical  logic  of  money 

97.  History 

98.  Historical  Science 

99.  Arrangement  of  the  Science 
100,  Relativity  of  Existence 


234 
241 
242 
243 
244 
244 
245 
249 
255 
263 
270 
274 
286 
367 
455 
464 
475 
491 


THE 


THEORY   OF   PRACTICE. 


BOOK  II. 


VOL.  IT.  B 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


"  There  is,  or  rather  there  ought  to  he,  a  logic  of  the  will,  as 
well  as  of  the  understanding.^^ 


Bentham. 


§  76.  I.  Pure  Logic  is  that  system  of  forms  which 
voluntary  redintegration  necessarily  and  universally 
assumes,  or  that  abstract  method  which  it  follows,  in 
its  process.  Necessity,  as  has  been  shown  continually 
in  "  Time  and  Space,"  is  but  the  subjective  correlate 
or  subjective  aspect  of  universality.  Whatever  forms 
or  whatever  method  voluntary  redintegration  takes 
universally,  without  exception  in  any  instance,  these 
are  its  necessary  forms  or  method.  Hence  the  laws 
of  pure  logic  are  discovered  solely  by  metaphysic, 
that  is,  by  metaphysical  analysis  of  the  process  of 
voluntary  redintegration,  and  discovered  in  or  as  be- 
longing inseparably  to  that  process.  This  discovery 
is  what  was  attempted  in  Chapter  vii.  of  "  Time  and 
Space,"  where  the  concept-form  or  the  postulates  of 
logic  were  shown  to  arise  from  the  operation  of  voli- 
tion in  the  forms  of  time  and  space,  which  are  the 
formal  element  in  all  consciousness  and  in  all  its  per- 


BooK  n. 

Ch.  I. 


§76. 
The  method 
of  volition. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PEACTICE. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 

§76. 
The' method 
of  volition. 


ceptions.  Pure  logic,  which  makes  abstraction  of  all 
particular  aim  or  content  of  volition,  and  is  applic- 
able solely  to  voluntary  redintegration  as  such,  no 
matter  what  the  redintegrated  representations  may 
be,  contains  only  such  abstract  and  general  forms  of 
thought  as  are  founded  on  the  postulates  or  on  the 
concept-form  alone.  But  the  moment  any  particular 
object  or  content  of  the  volition  is  assumed,  that 
moment  the  logic  ceases  to  be  pure,  and  takes  up  into 
its  own  abstract  and  general  forms  other  forms  and 
distinctions  belonging  to  the  objects  represented  in 
the  redintegration.  The  logic  then  becomes  a  mixed 
or  applied  logic ;  mixed  because  its  abstract  forms 
are  exhibited  in  shapes  derived  from  the  particular 
object,  and  applied  because  its  abstract  method  is 
directed  to  the  investigation  of  an  object-matter  dis- 
tino-uishable  from  itself  But  still  the  more  concrete 
forms  of  mixed  logic  are  inherent  and  discoverable 
in  the  objects  represented  in  the  logical  redintegra- 
tions, just  as  the  abstract  forms  of  pure  logic  are  in 
voluntary  redintegration  taken  in  the  abstract. 

2.  Every  particular  object  of  voluntary  redinte- 
gration has  in  this  way  a  mixed  logic  of  its  own ;  the 
particular  way  of  dealing  with  it,  of  directing  the 
redintegrations  which  contain  it,  must  be  learnt  from 
the  object  itself;  but  every  particular  way  of  dealing 
with  it,  whether  right  or  wrong,  must  as  a  matter  of 
fact  be  a  mode  of  pure  logic,  a  movement  of  thought 
in  the  method  of  the  concept-form  or  the  postulates, 
differentiated  by  the  forms  of  the  object  itself  Every 
object  so  treated  is  moulded,  as  it  were,  into  shapes 
developing  and  differentiating  the  first  or  most  ob- 
vious shapes  which  the  logical  treatment  observes  in 
it ;  and  the  most  complete  investigation  of  it  possible, 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


the  most  complete  coordination  and  subordination  of 
its  parts,  is  but  the  continuation  of  the  same  process 
of  redintegration  which  observed  its  first  or  most 
obvious  distinctions.  In  other  words,  the  science  of 
any  object  or  set  of  objects,  the  objects  themselves 
in  their  scientific  arrangement,  is  the  complete  estab- 
lishment and  development  of  the  logic  of  that  object 
or  set  of  objects ;  or,  a  science  is  the  completion  of  a 
logic,  a  logic  the  foundation  of  a  science.  The  logic 
and  the  science  of  any  object-matter  are  not  two 
things  but  one  thing;  the  same  thing  considered  as 
to  its  growth  in  knowledge  is  logic,  and  considered 
as  to  its  fulness  and  arrano-ement  when  ffrown  is 
science.  There  are  no  distinctions  of  logic  which  are 
not  distinctions  between  facts  of  science,  there  are  no 
facts  of  science  which  are  not  members  of  a  distinc- 
tion of  logic.  The  organon  of  discovery  consists  in 
the  facts  and  distinctions  already  discovered. 

3.  Throughout  the  whole  history,  therefore,  of 
any  branch  of  knowledge,  its  science  and  its  logic  are 
two  inseparable,  correlated,  aspects  of  each  other. 
Nevertheless  there  comes  a  point  in  the  history  of 
every  science,  at  which  we  are  accustomed  to  say, 
here  the  lo^-ic  ends  and  the  science  beo:ins.  This 
point  is  where  we  are  in  possession  of  such  a  fund 
of  distinctions  and  of  facts,  that  we  can  use  them  as 
a  whole  for  the  deduction  of  other  new  facts  and 
new  distinctions  ;  where  we  possess  in  the  already 
acquired  fund  of  knowledge  an  organon  for  the  de- 
duction of  new  truths  in  the  science.  This  fund  is 
then  called  the  Logic  of  the  Science  in  a  special  sense ; 
as  being  that  firmly  established  body  of  facts  and 
distinctions  which  are  regarded  as  being  beyond  the 
power  of  future  discoveries  to  disprove,  or  as  the 


Book  H. 
Ch.  I. 

§76. 
The  niethnd 
of  volition. 


6  THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 

Book  11.      conditioiis  of  tliG  truth  of  facts  and  distinctions  still 
— ^'        to  be  discovered.     The  science  is  then  said  to  have 
The^Diethod     entered  on  its  deductive  stage. 

4.  It  is  a  Loffic  in  this  second  sense  of  the  term 


which  is  at  present  in  question  with  respect  to  the 
object-matter  of  practice,  whether  there  is  such  a 
logic  discoverable,  and  in  what  it  consists.  What 
then  are  the  characteristics  of  this  object-matter? 
Two  are  plainly  discoverable  at  first  sight;  the  red- 
integrations in  question  are  processes,  1st,  of  con- 
sciousness, 2nd,  of  volition.  Now  all  processes  which 
take  place  in  unconscious  things,  such  as  physical, 
mechanical,  chemical,  vegetable,  processes,  seem  to 
be  completely  exhausted  logically  by  being  considered 
under  two  aspects,  the  statical  and  the  dynamical; 
when  any  state  of  them  is  abstracted  from  states 
antecedent  and  subsequent  to  it  and  thus  examined 
statically,  and  then  its  connection  with  those  states 
and  the  movement  or  series  of  which  it  forms  a  part 
are  added  to  the  former  examination,  the  logic  thus 
applied  seems  sufficiently  searching  to  leave  no  corner 
of  the  phenomena  unexplored.  These  phenomena  are 
thus  examined  objectively.  But  when  the  pheno- 
mena in  question  are  states,  and  sequences  of  states, 
of  consciousness,  then  they  assume  a  double  aspect, 
subjective  as  well  as  objective,  and  the  connection 
between  every  former  and  latter  state  is  both  a  fact 
in  the  object  perceived  or  represented  and  a  fact  in 
the  perception  or  representation  of  that  object;  de- 
pends, in  the  former  character,  upon  the  features  of 
the  object  represented,  in  the  latter  character,  upon 
the  nerve  movements  supporting  the  perception  or 
representation.  There  is  a  threefold  character  im- 
printed on  the  process,  for  in  the  statical  analysis 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


the  subjective  and  objective  aspects  coincide,  are  in- 
separably the  same,  while  in  the  dynamical  analysis 
the  track  followed  by  thought  differs  from  that  fol- 
lowed by  nature  and  discovered  by  thought  in  the 
objects  redintegrated.  We  thus  get  the  distinction, 
established  in  "  Time  and  Space"  §  40,  into  the  three 
orders,  Essendi,  Existendi,  and  Cognoscendi.  These 
three  orders  seem  equally  to  exhaust  processes  of 
consciousness  as  those  of  statical  and  dynamical  ana- 
lysis exhaust  processes  of  unconscious  objects. 

5.  But  the  application  of  these  distinctions  di- 
rectly to  the  object-matter  in  hand  would  be  to  con- 
sider that  object-matter  from  the  outside,  as  it  were, 
or  objectively,  as  if  it  were  an  unconscious  object- 
matter.  Since  it  is  a  process  of  consciousness,  the 
important  question  is,  not  what  distinctions  we  may 
perceive  in  it,  but  what  distinctions  it  perceives  in 
itself  while  in  action;  in  other  words,  what  shape 
these  same  distinctions,  now  perceived  by  us  in  its 
process,  assume  to  the  Subject  who  has  the  redin- 
tegrations. Only  the  distinctions  so  perceived  can 
be  the  logic  of  the  process,  the  method  followed  by 
the  redintegration  itself.  The  redintegrations  of  prac- 
tice have  two  branches,  as  shown  in  §  56,  that  in 
which  we  choose  the  best,  and  that  in  which  we 
judge  of  the  best;  that  in  which  we  aim  to  be  or  do 
the  best,  and  that  in  which  we  aim  to  know  what 
is  the  best.  In  both  alike  we  exercise  volition,  in 
choosing  either  between  images  or  between  feelings. 
In  both  therefore  we  start  from  a  known  and  lelt 
representation,  and  aim  at  one  which  is  only  known 
or  felt  in  outline.  By  calling  this  "  the  best"  it  is 
meant  to  include  in  it  all  ends,  aims,  or  purposes, 
whatever;    "the  best"    is  the  widest  term  possible 


Book  II. 
On.  I. 

§  '^''• 
The  method 
of  volition. 


8 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 

§76. 
The  method 
of  volition. 


for  the  ultimate  end  of  volitions,  be  they  what  they 
may.  And  in  all  of  them  we  start  from  some  state 
of  feeling  and  thought  which  is  actual,  and  proceed 
by  aiming  at  some  dimly  or  partially  seen  state,  some 
ideal,  which  we  try  to  realise,  or  make  actual  in  ex- 
perience. We  proceed  from  the  one  towards  the 
other  by  media  or  middle  steps,  which  in  the  branch 
of  judgment  are  evidences  of  the  desired  truth,  in 
the  branch  of  choice  are  means  to  the  desired  plea- 
sure. Both  kinds  of  media  may  be  called  by  the 
common  name  criteria,  since  both  branches  of  the 
process  are  processes  of  consciousness,  and  even  the 
means  to  a  desired  pleasure  must  be  judged  to  be 
such  means,  or  they  would  not  be  chosen  to  lead  to 
it.  The  criteria  of  the  branch  of  judgment  have  pre- 
dominantly the  character  of  imagery  or  framework, 
those  of  the  branch  of  choice  predominantl}^  the  cha- 
racter of  feeling  or  emotion. 

6.  Now  the  terminus  a  quo  in  both  branches  cor- 
responds to  the  order  essendi  in  the  objective  logic 
of  the  process.  It  is  a  state  of  consciousness  known 
for  what  it  is,  and  it  is  what  it  is  known  as.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  terminus  ad  quem  in  both 
branches ;  it  is  an  ideal  at  first,  and  when  reached  is 
a  state  realised,  just  as  was  the  terminus  a  quo;  its 
nature  is  defined  only  by  the  knowledge  of  it,  or 
its  nature  means  its  known  nature.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  any  of  the  intermediate  states  of  conscious- 
ness between  the  two  termini,  when  considered  sta- 
tically or  each  by  itself.  The  two  termini  difiTer  not 
from  each  other  in  belonging  to  a  different  order,  for 
they  both  belong  ■  to  the  order  essendi,  but  in  being 
the  one  actual,  the  other  ideal.  Within  the  move- 
ment from  one  to  the  other  lies  the  distinction  cor- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


9 


responding"  to  that  between  the  orders  existendi  and 
cognoscendi,  just  as  this  latter  distinction  arose  within 
the  dynamical  analysis  of  unconscious  objects.  In 
each  of  the  two  branches,  of  judgment  and  of  choice, 
and  in  the  criteria  which  are  the  steps  of  their  move- 
ment, two  different  elements  or  strains  are  apparent, 
first,  the  kind  of  knowledo'e  or  feelino-  which  consti- 
tutes  these  states  what  they  are  in  point  of  nature, 
secondly,  the  strength  or  degree  of  pleasure  which 
makes  one  arise  in  preference  to  another,  or  which 
guides  the  train  of  representations.  The  former  of 
these  corresponds  to  the  order  of  knowledge,  the 
latter  to  the  order  of  existence.  Yet  both  are  pheno- 
mena of  consciousness,  phenomena  seen  subjectively, 
or  as  they  appear  to  the  redintegrating  Subject. 

7.  We  have,  therefore,  for  our  first  distinctions  in 
the  logic  of  practice  the  three  following,  correspond- 
ing to  the  orders  of  logic,  of  history,  and  of  know- 
ledge, namely,  the  distinctions  between  the  nature  of 
states  of  consciousness,  whether  these  are  actual  or 
ideal;  the  efficient  cause  of  their  production  or  repro- 
duction in  consciousness,  the  energy  of  which  is  mea- 
sured by  their  degree  of  pleasure ;  and  the  cause  of 
our  knowing  what  the  redintegration  tends  towards, 
which  is  the  analysis  or  knowledge  of  each  inter- 
mediate step.  Let  us  now  see  how  each  branch  of 
practice  fits  itself  into  these  distinctions  in  actual 
working,  and  how  in  doing  so  it  works  also  in  the 
forms  or  method  of  pure  logic,  the  concept-form  and 
the  postulates.  Here  we  must  attend  to  the  second 
characteristic  of  the  object-matter,  namely,  that  it  is 
a  process  of  volition.  The  concrete  shape  of  every 
process  of  conscious  volition  must  assume  both  the 
sets  of  forms,  causaa  existendi  and  causae  cognoscendi, 


Book  U. 
Cii.  I. 


The  method 
of  volition. 


10 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE, 


Book II.      iiow  pointed  out;  and  the  question  is,  how  these  as 

— ■        well  as  the  concept-form  and  the  postulates,  are  in- 

The  method     volvcd  iu  that  coucretc  shape,  or  what  that  concrete 

(if  volition.  ,  .  ,   .    ,     .  T  .-, 

shape  is  which  involves  them. 

8.  In  the  judgment  branch  of  practice  the  redin- 
tegration starts  from  some  present  state  of  the  Ego, 
a  state  which  is  defined  only  by  the  desire  to  judge 
between  two  or  more  mediate  ends,  two  or  more  re- 
presentations, at  present  imperfectly  known,  and  to 
decide  which  of  them  is  the  best.     Here  the  ultimate 
end  of  the  voluntary  redintegration,  by  which  the 
present  state  of  the  Ego  is  defined,   is  the  general 
idea  of  the  good  or  best,  a  general  idea  requiring  to 
be  specialised  and  known  in  relation  to  the  two  or 
more  mediate  ends  or  representations,  which   spon- 
taneous redintegration  offers,  and  between  which  the 
volition  is  to  judge.     But  the  ultimate  end,  or  idea 
of  the  best,  general  as  it  is,  is  yet  to  some  extent 
known  or  imagined;   and   so  far   as  it  is  known  or 
imagined  it  becomes  the  middle  term,  or  criterion, 
of  a  syllogism,  of  the  syllogism   of  practical  judg- 
ment, the  conclusion  of  which  is  one  or  other  of  the 
mediate  ends  or  representations  between  which  the 
volition  had  to  judge.     These  formed  the  quaestio  of 
the  syllogism,  and  one  of  them  now  forms  the  con- 
clusion, the  others  being  excluded  from  the  known 
or  imagined  part  of  the  idea  of  the  best,  which  is  the 
middle  term.     For  instance,  suppose  the  quasstio  to 
be  whether  this  particular  act  of  strict  honesty,  A, 
or  that  particular  act  of  loosely  conceived  honesty, 
B,  or  another  of  honesty  apparently  strict,  but  really 
dishonest,  C,  is  the  best;   and  suppose  the  idea  of 
the  best,  as  now  known  to  us,  to  include  only  jus- 
tice, veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth;  the  first  step  in 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


11 


the  syllogistic  process  is  to  unite  the  middle  term 
with  the  general  idea  of  the  best,  or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  with  the  present  state  of  the  Ego,  the 
second  and  third  to  exclude  from  that  middle  term 
loose  honesty  and  apparent  honesty,  as  refusing  to 
coalesce  with  its  characteristics,  zeal  for  truth  and 
veracity.  The  conclusion  binds  together  the  Ego 
with  the  third  term  of  the  queestio,  strict  honesty, 
as  the  only  one  which  coalesces  with  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  middle  term.  The  syllogism  then 
stands  thus : 

The  particular  act  of  strict  honesty.  A,  is  (con- 
tained in)  justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for 
truth ; 

Justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth,  are  (coin- 
cident with)  the  present  state  of  the  Ego, 
or  general  idea  of  the  best ; 

.  * .  The  particular  act  of  strict  honesty  is  (con- 
tained in)  the  present  state  of  the  Ego,  or 
general  idea  of  the  best. 

Or  as  a  negative  syllogism,  thus : 

The  particular  acts,  B  and  C,  are  excluded  from 
justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth ; 

Justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth,  are  (coin- 
cident with)  the  present  state  of  the  Ego, 
or  general  idea  of  the  best ; 

.  • .  The  particular  acts,  B  and  C,  are  excluded 
from  the  present  state  of  the  Ego,  or  ge- 
neral idea  of  the  best. 

Both  syllogisms  belong  to  the  2nd  figure  given  in 
"  Time  and  Space"  §  56. 

9.  It  is  now  to  be  noted  that  the  conclusion  of' 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 


§7G. 
The  method 
of  volition. 


12 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 

§76. 
The  method 
of  volition. 


this   syllogistic  process,  the  particular  act  of  strict 
honesty,  is  an  interpretation  both  of  what  the  Ego 
is,  and  of  what  the  Ego  understands  the  ideal  best  to 
be.     The  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  ideal  best  has 
been  differentiated,   and  thereby  perfected  ;    it  now 
includes  consciously  that  act  which  is  strictly  honest, 
as  well  as  those  emotions,  justice,  veracity,  and  zeal 
for  truth,  which  were  assumed  as  its  known  meaning. 
This  diiferentiation  is  of  course  due  to  the  previous 
habits  of  redintegration,  by  which  such  and  such  re- 
presentations have  been  put  together  in  times  past. 
The  Ego  also  is  differentiated  and  made  more  per- 
fect by  one  more  judgment  that  such  and  such  charac- 
teristics belong  to  its  idea  of  good.     The  concluding 
term  in  short  becomes  a  new  criterion  in  the  process 
above  described,  where  the  Ego  passes  from  a  pre- 
sent state  towards  the  realisation  of  an  ideal  state  ; 
for  this  criterion,  inasmuch  as  it  is  an  actual  judg- 
ment or  act  of  the  Ego,  is  an  actual  step  in  its  his- 
tory, or  order  of  existence  ;   and,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
a  differentiation  of  the  general  or  imperfectly  kno^Ti 
ideal,  is  a  test  or  evidence  of  the  nature  of  that  ideal, 
added  to  the  evidence  by  which  alone  it  was  pre- 
viously known.     The  middle  term,  whatever  it  may 
be,  is  itself  supplied  by  spontaneous  redintegration 
like  the  rest ;  it  is  the  most  certain  part  of  the  know- 
ledge at  the  time,  having  been  the  fruit  of  previous 
redintegrations  and  syllogisms  ;  while  those  parts  of 
the  idea  which  are  still  unkno^^ni,  or  doubtful,  the 
known  part  of  it  being  the  middle  term,  are  viewed 
by  the  Subject  as  an  unknown  ideal  to  which  he  is 
tending,  or  the  knowledge  of  which  he  is  seeking,  by 
means  of  the  voluntary  redintegration.      The  crite- 
rion which  his  reasoning  produces,  the  conclusion  of 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


13 


his  syllogism,  becomes  in  turn  a  new  criterion  of  the 
nature,  still  unknown  otherwise,  of  the  ideal  which 
he  seeks  to  know. 

lo.  Turning  now  to  the  branch  of  choice  in  prac- 
tice, it  will  be  well  to  refer  to  the  dictum  of  Aristotle, 
End.  Eth.  v.  2.  already  quoted  in  §  20.  3,  that  pur- 
suit and  avoidance  are  in  desire  what  affirmation  and 
denial  are  in  understanding.  '  Desire'  it  was  there 
said  '  is  affirmation  that  an  object  makes  part  of  our 
trains  of  association,  asserts  that  it  belono-s  to  our 
consciousness  ;  dislike  or  repulsion  of  an  object  is 
negation  of  it,  or  denying  that  it  is  part  of  our 
train.'  But  for  this  distinction  the  method  of  the 
two  branches  of  practice  is  the  same.  Suppose  any 
one  has  an  actual  choice  proposed  to  him  between 
doing  or  having  two  or  more  objects,  A,  B,  C.  These 
are  representations  offered  successively  by  sponta- 
neous redintegration;  his  general  habit  of  choosing 
whatever  is  most  agreeable  or  best  is,  in  choice,  what 
his  general  idea  of  best  is  in  judgment;  that  is,  in- 
stead of  proposing  to  himself,  or  identifying  himself 
with,  the  idea  of  the  best  or  greatest  pleasure,  he 
acts  on  the  habit  without  converting;  it  into  an  imao-e 
or  proposition.  The  conflicting  pleasures.  A,  B,  C,  are 
then  compared  with  each  other,  not  by  comparison  of 
judgment,  but  by  actual  weight,  intensity,  or  power 
of  fixing  the  redintegration ;  that  which  is  the  most 
intense  is  the  determining  motive  of  the  choice,  and 
corresponds  to  the  middle  term  in  judgment ;  this  is 
also  the  one  Avhich  finally  remains  in  possession  of 
consciousness,  which  in  other  words  is  the  one  chosen; 
and  thus  becomes  for  other  persons  a  criterion  or 
evidence,  not  indeed  of  what  the  Ego  knows,  but  of 
what  he  feels  at  the  time  to  be  most  pleasureable, 


Book  1 1. 
Ch.  ]. 


§76. 


The  method 
of  volition. 


14 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PEACTICE. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 


The  method 
of  volition. 


the  criterion  of  what  he  feels  to  be  best.  It  is  in 
choice  the  criterion  and  the  conclusion  of  judgment 
both  in  one ;  and  in  the  character  of  conclusion,  or 
practical  decision  arrived  at,  is  the  differentiation  of 
the  Ego  by  a  new  act  tending  towards  an  ideal  good, 
and  evidencing,  when  its  nature  is  analysed,  not  in- 
deed the  state  of  the  agent's  knowledge,  but  that  of 
his  feelings,  not  the  clearness  of  his  judgment  but 
the  relative  strength  of  his  motives.  If  this  process 
is  represented  in  syllogistic  form,  as  it  may  readily 
be,  the  syllogism  will  be  in  the  4th  figure  given  in 
"  Time  and  Space"  §  56,  as  those  representing  prac- 
tical judgment  were  in  the  2nd  figure  ;  the  reason 
being-  that  the  train  of  redinteo:ration  as  a  Avhole 
is  pictured  by  the  syllogism,  and  that  the  train  or 
movement  of  choice,  being  not  consciously  analytic 
like  that  of  judgment,  excludes  not  by  mentioning 
and  denying,  but  by  simply  omitting,  what  it  rejects. 
The  syllogism,  then,  to  take  the  former  instance,  will 
stand  thus : 

The  present  state  of  the  Ego  coincides  with 
justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth ; 

Justice,  veracity,  and  zeal  for  truth,  coincide 
with  this  act  of  strict  honesty ; 

. ' .  The  present  state  of  the  Ego  coincides  with 
this  act  of  strict  honesty. 

The  Ego  itself  is  represented  as  passing  through  three 
states  in  succession ;  identifying  itself  first  with  the 
middle  term,  then  with  its  specialisation;  the  plea- 
sure which  is  the  determining  motive  being  the  same 
throughout,  first  as  criterion,  secondly  as  conclusion. 
II.  The  processes  in  the  two  branches  of  judg- 
ment and  of  choice  are  precisely  the  same  in  point 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE.  15 

of  kind,  but  differ  in  the  proportion  in  which  the  Book  n. 
criterion  or  middle  term  of  each  contains  the  two  —' 
elements  of  emotion  and  imagery.  Action,  it  has  xhe'inetiiod 
been  shown,  depends  upon  the  strength  of  pleasure- 
able  emotion,  judgment  upon  clearness  of  its  frame- 
work. But  just  as  all  action  is  judgment  and  all 
judgment  action,  so  all  motives  of  action  are  evid- 
ences in  knowledge,  and  all  criteria  of  judgment  are 
motives  in  action.  It  was  necessary  for  the  sake 
of  clearness  to  discriminate  and  describe  separately 
the  two  branches  of  practice  ;  to  begin  by  treating 
the  two  cases  as  different,  in  order  to  demonstrate 
their  fundamental  sameness.  But  this  having  been 
done,  we  may  now  reduce  both  to  one  and  the  same 
logical  form.  Voluntary  redintegration,  we  may  now 
say,  as  a  concrete  process,  moves  in  a  method  dis- 
tinguished by  three  fundamental  characteristics.  It 
has  a  general  aim,  end,  or  ideal ;  it  has  an  evidence 
or  test  applicable  at  present,  of  what  that  ideal  will 
consist  in ;  and  it  has  a  motive  power,  known  or 
felt  as  the  greatest  immediate  pleasure,  which  is  the 
efficient  cause,  operative  at  present,  of  the  attainment 
of  that  ideal.  These  three  things  are  actually  felt 
by  the  Subject  in  voluntary  redintegration  ;  they  are 
the  forms  in  which  the  abstract  forms  of  pure  logic, 
the  concept-form  and  the  postulates,  are  clothed  in 
any  concrete  case  of  voluntary  action  or  reasoning. 
We  all  distino;uish  our  knowledo:e  of  what  is  rii^ht, 
or  prudent,  or  ultimately  most  for  our  happiness, 
from  our  feeling  of  what  is  most  intensely  pleasure- 
able  at  the  moment ;  we  often  find  these  two  things 
leading  to  different  results;  the  clashing  between  the 
two,  and  the  frequent  victory  of  the  latter,  when  for 
instance  we  do  what  we  know  clearly  to  be  not  only 


16 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PEACTICE. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  I. 


§76. 


wrong  but  highly  imprudent,  have  been  the  theme 
of  moralists  and  satirists  times  without  end.  The 
The^niethod  aualjsis  of  the  foregoing  Book  enables  us  now  to  re- 
duce them  under  the  present  logic  of  practice,  with 
its  three  moments,  the  End,  the  Criterion,  the  Mo- 
tive. The  End  is  the  ideal  greatest  good,  or  Sum- 
mum  Bonum,  in  whatever  it  may  be  discovered  to 
consist.  It  is  considered  statically  not  dynamically, 
as  part  of  the  order  of  logic,  not  of  knowledge  or 
of  history.  It  is  what  it  will  be  ultimately  known 
as.  The  Criterion  is  the  cause  of  our  knowing  more 
perfectly  than  before  this  ideal  end ;  it  belongs  to 
the  order  of  knowledoe.  The  Motive,  which  is  the 
greatest  immediate  pleasure,  the  evidence  of  the 
nerve  movement  which  is  strongest  at  the  time,  a 
pleasure  which  can  only  be  known  to  be  the  greatest 
at  the  time  by  its  actually  prevailing  or  remaining 
in  consciousness,  is,  with  nerve  movement  on  which 
it  depends,  the  efficient  or  dynamical  cause,  tending 
to  the  production  or  modification  of  the  ultimate 
ideal  end,  and  belongs  to  the  order  of  history.  For 
this  End  has  also  both  characteristics  in  itself,  that 
of  beino;  a  state  of  consciousness  and  that  of  beins^ 
a  real  fact,  requiring,  in  the  latter  character,  an  actual 
train  of  eflficient  causes  before  it  can  itself  become 
actual. 

§  77.  I.  Many  writers  on  ethic  endeavour  to  crowd 
all  its  phenomena  together  under  two  heads  of  logic, 
usually  called  the  questions  as  to  the  nature  of  right 
or  good,  and  the  causes  or  motives  which  lead  us  to 
pursue  or  enable  us  to  attain  it.  The  evidence  of 
what  is  good,  my  second  point,  is  then  treated  either 
under  the  question  of  nature  or  under  that  of  motive. 
But  it  is  often  clear,  from  the  very  manner  in  which 


Instances  of 
this  method. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


17 


these  heads  of  enquiry  are  laid  down,  that  two  alone 
are  an  insufficient  logical  apparatus  for  the  discus- 
sion. Thus,  for  instance,  in  Adam  Smith's  Theory 
of  Moral  Sentiments,  Part  vii.  Section  i.  entitled  "  Of 
the  questions  which  ought  to  be  examined  in  a  theory 
of  moral  sentiments,"  we  read  as  follows  :  "In  treat- 
ing of  the  principles  of  morals  there  are  two  ques- 
tions to  be  considered.  First,  wherein  does  virtue 
consist — or  what  is  the  tone  of  temper,  and  tenor  of 
conduct,  which  constitutes  the  excellent  and  praise- 
worthy character,  the  character  which  is  the  natural 
object  of  esteem,  honour,  and  approbation  ?  And, 
secondly,  by  what  power  or  faculty  in  the  mind  is 
it  that  this  character,  whatever  it  be,  is  recommended 
to  us  ?  or,  in  other  words,  how  and  by  what  means 
does  it  come  to  pass,  that  the  mind  prefers  one  tenor 
of  conduct  to  another ;  denominates  the  one  right 
and  the  other  wrong  ;  considers  the  one  as  the  ob- 
ject of  approbation,  honour,  and  reward,  and  the 
other  of  blame,  censure,  and  punishment?"  Here  we 
might  almost  doubt  whether  the  illustrious  author 
intended  to  include  the  efficient  motives  of  action  in 
the  enquiry  ;  and  when  he  comes,  in  the  third  Sec- 
tion, to  treat  of  the  second  class  of  questions,  he  sums 
them  up  as  an  enquiry  "  concerning  the  principle  of 
approbation."  It  is  true  that  approbation  itself  is  a 
strong  motive  of  action  ;  but  is  it  the  only  motive, 
or  a  condition  sine  qua  non  of  any  other  feeling  be- 
coming one  ?  Do  not  these  questions  by  themselves 
show  the  necessity  of  treating  the  question  of  mo- 
tive, or  dynamic  power  in  conscious  action,  separately 
from  the  question  of  judgment  or  approbation  ? 

2.  The  distinction  between  motive  and  criterion 
is  very  clearly  drawn  and   strongly  insisted  on  by 

VOL.  II.  c 


Book  XL 
Ch.  I. 


§77. 
Instances  of 
this  method. 


18  THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 

Book  II.      Beiitham.     For  instance,  in  his  Principles  of  Morals 

—         and  Legislation,  Chap.  ii.  xix.  he  says :  "  There  are 

Instances  of    two  thin2:s  which  are  very  apt  to  be  confounded,  but 

this  method.  ci  ./       i  •    i  i 

which  it  imports  us  carefully  to  distinguish: — the 
motive  or  cause,  which,  by  operating  on  the  mind 
of  an  individual,  is  productive  of  any  act,  and  the 
ground  or  reason  which  warrants  a  legislator,  or 
other  bystander,  in  regarding  that  act  with  an  eye 
of  approbation.  When  the  act  happens,  in  the  par- 
ticular instance  in  question,  to  be  productive  of  effects 
which  we  approve  of.  much  more  if  we  happen  to 
observe  that  the  same  motive  may  frequently  be  pro- 
ductive, in  other  instances,  of  the  like  effects,  we  are 
apt  to  transfer  our  approbation  to  the  motive  itself, 
and  to  assume,  as  the  just  ground  for  the  approba- 
tion we  bestow  on  the  act,  the  circumstance  of  its 
originating  from  that  motive.  It  is  in  this  way  that 
the  sentiment  of  antipathy  has  often  been  considered 
as  a  just  ground  of  action.  Antipathy,  for  instance, 
in  such  or  such  a  case,  is  the  cause  of  an  action 
which  is  attended  with  good  effects :  but  this  does 
not  make  it  a  right  ground  of  action  in  that  case, 
any  more  than  in  any  other.  Still  farther.  Not  only 
the  effects  are  good,  but  the  agent  sees  beforehand 
that  they  will  be  so.  This  may  make  the  action  in- 
deed a  perfectly  right  action:  but  it  does  not  make 
antipathy  a  right  ground  of  action.  For  the  same 
sentiment  of  antipathy,  if  implicitly  deferred  to,  may 
be  and  very  frequently  is,  productive  of  the  very 
worst  effects.  *****  The  only  right  ground  of 
action,  that  can  possibly  subsist,  is,  after  all,  the  con- 
sideration of  utility,  which,  if  it  is  a  right  principle 
of  action  and  of  approbation,  in  any  one  case,  is  so 
in  every  other.     Other  principles  in  abundance,  that 


THE  LOGIC  OF  PRACTICE. 


19 


is,  other  motives,  may  be  the  reasons  why  such  and 
such  an  act  has  been  done :  that  is,  the  reasons  or 
causes  of  its  being  done:  but  it  is  this  alone  that 
can  be  the  reason  why  it  might  or  ought  to  have 
been  done." 

3.  Here  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  Bentham  dis- 
tinguishes really  three  things,  the  actual  motive  of 
an  action,  the  intention  or  knowledge  of  the  effects 
of  the  action,  and  these  effects  themselves  as  seen 
by  a  bystander ;  in  other  words,  he  distinguishes  the 
actual  motives  which  may  be  good  or  bad  indiffer- 
ently, the  right  motive  which  is  the  consideration  of 
utility,  and  the  right  effects  which  are  utility  itself. 
Only  when  the  consideration  of  utility  is  the  actual 
as  well  as  the  right  motive,  would  he  say  that  both 
agent  and  act  were  perfectly  right.  He  makes  three 
heads  of  logic,  so  to  speak,  and  in  two  of  them  places 
Utility,  in  case  the  act  and  agent  are  good.  The 
consideration  of  utility  is  the  right  motive,  utility 
itself  is  the  end  reahsed  or  aimed  at.  What  I  call 
criterion  he  calls  consideration  of  the  effects  of  the 
action,  or  right  intention ;  the  logic,  had  Bentham 
drawn  it  out,  is  the  same,  though  the  filling  up  or 
application  of  it  may  be  different.  "Whereas  Adam 
Smith  allows  the  important  point  of  motive  or  dy- 
namic power  to  be  almost  dropped  out  of  view,  in 
his  care  to  distinguish  the  nature  of  right  from  the 
criterion  of  right,  all  that  is  wanting  in  the  passage 
quoted  from  Bentham  is  the  explicit  distinction  of 
the  end  from  the  criterion,  and  the  explicit  state- 
ment of  the  three  logical  moments,  end,  criterion,  and 
motive,  which  nevertheless  are  clearly  discernible 
therein. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  I. 


Instances  of 
this  method. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


B/og  ya^  £p*  a'jTOv  fKaerw,  xa/  iv  rfi  svs^yiicc  to  sv. 

Plotinus. 


^H^iP'  §  '''^-  ^'  "^^^  logical  forms  established  in  the  pre- 
—  ceding  Chapter  exhaust  the  whole  process  of  prac- 
Tiie  Summuin  ^[qq  qj.  voluntary  redintegration.  It  remains  to  apply 
Etiic.  them  to  the  object-matter  analysed  in  Book  i.,  that 
is,  to  discover  the  best  and  simplest  forms  which 
practice  can  assume  when  its  multifarious  processes 
are  combined  with  these  which  are  the  necessary  or 
universal  forms  of  all  its  processes  alike ;  by  which 
it  is  intended  to  convey  that  the  task  before  us  is 
no  longer  a  discovery  merely  of  the  actual,  but  of  a 
distinction  to  guide  choice,  a  construction  as  much 
as  a  discovery  of  logic.  We  take  up  at  this  point  a 
position  ab  extra,  and  endeavour  to  deduce,  from 
the  analysis  of  the  object-matter  and  from  its  neces- 
sary and  most  general  logic,  that  sort  of  continuation 
of  the  logic  which  is  properly  called  science  (§  76,  3). 
It  is  clear  that  from  this  point  onward  there  both 
may  be  and  is  the  greatest  divergence  of  practical 
systems.      The  task  before  us,  then,  is  to  criticise 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  21 

these,  and,   so  far  as  they  are  found  faulty  or  de-      booku. 


Ch.  II. 


§78. 


ficient,  to  supply  their  place  with  one  more  accurate. 

With  this  view  I  undertake,  in  this  Chapter,  that  TheSummum 

branch  of  the  logic  of  practice  which  considers  man        EthTc."' 

as  an  individual  person,  reserving  for  the  following 

one  the  consideration  of  the  action  and  reaction  of 

men  on  each   other  in  society;   the  former  branch 

being  properly  called  the  logic  of  ethic,  the  latter 

that  of  politic. 

2.  The  method  to  be  followed  in  this  enquiry 
must  flow  from  the  loo;ical  distinctions  established 
in  the  preceding  Chapter.  I  will  accordingly  apply 
separately  and  successively  the  three  heads  of  logic, 
the  end,  the  motive,  the  criterion.  And  first  the 
end,  since  to  determine  this  is  nothing  else  than  to 
determine  the  nature  of  what  is  best,  the  nature  of 
what  is  right  and  good.  In  the  first  place  it  is  evi- 
dent, that  this  is  not  immediately  known  to  any  one. 
All  we  know  about  it,  in  the  first  instance,  is  that 
it  bears  the  general  character  of  right  and  goodness, 
using  '  goodness'  as  the  most  general  expression  for 
pleasure  of  feeling  and  emotion,  and  that  it  carries 
these  qualities  to  their  highest  pitch,  or  possesses 
them  in  their  greatest  degree.  This  preliminary  de- 
termination of  the  object  sought  is  obviously  most 
general,  nothing  more  than  is  required  for  the  ex- 
pression of  the  question  we  ask  about  it ;  since  with- 
out knowing  something  of  what  we  want  we  could 
not  ask  or  seek  at  all.  When  we  put  the  question 
What  this  Summum  Bonum  is,  we  clearly  want  a 
further  determination  of  it.  The  answer  must  there- 
fore be  given,  if  at  all,  by  reason,  or  reasoning  re- 
flection. It  must  consist  in  something  not  obvious 
at  first  sight ;  and  it  must  be  an  analysis  of  the  na- 


22  THE  LOGIC  or  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      tiire  of  the  Summum  Bonum,  an  answer  to  the  ques- 

—^        tion  rl  l&ri^  and  not  to  the  questions,  how  it  comes 

The  Summum   to  cxist,  how  wc  Tcach  it,  01'  what  consequences  it 

Bonum  in  .  .         .  , 

Ethic.  produces.  And  since  the  answer  is  given  by  reason, 
it  must  be  an  answer  giving  the  true  nature  or  truth 
of  the  ideal  which  is  sought,  that  is,  an  analysis  of 
it  which  will  stand  the  test  of  the  most  continued 
and  the  most  searching  enquiry. 

3.  In  the  next  place,  the  Summum  Bonum  exhi- 
bited by  the  analysis  which  is  here  to  be  given  must 
be  capable  of  serving  as  the  ideal  end  of  all  men  and 
all  characters  alike,  no  matter  what  the  special  bent 
of  their  character,  the  special  emotion  predominant 
in  them,  may  be  ;  otherwise  it  would  not  be  the 
Summum  Bonum  or  End  of  a  general,  universally 
applicable,  science  of  ethic.  It  must  be  neither  too 
special  or  small  to  embrace  all  men,  nor  too  inde- 
finite or  large  to  serve  as  an  aim  of  conduct.  It 
must  be  capable  of  interpretation  by  criteria  which 
all  men,  however  different  in  character,  can  per- 
ceive and  apply.  This  character  of  the  End  points 
out  at  once  its  most  important  feature  ;  for  there 
is  no  other  emotion  but  that  of  Justice,  perfectly 
fulfilled  by  Love,  in  other  words,  the  sense  of 
Moral  Right  (§  37),  which  combines  these  features 
of  universality  and  definiteness.  Love  is  the  per- 
fect fulfilment  of  the  law,  that  is,  of  the  moral  law, 
the  law  of  justice.  The  end  is  therefore  definite  and 
of  universal  validity.  But  no  further  or  special  de- 
velopments of  this  principle  can  be  included  in  the 
summum  bonum  of  ethic,  as  an  universally  applicable 
science.  All  such  further  developments  belong  in  dif- 
ferent measures  to  difi*erent  types  of  character,  and 
there  is  not  one  among  them  which  can  be  imposed 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETKIC.  23 

as  an  universally  valid  rule  on  all.      The  conduct,       bookH. 
and  emotions,  and  objects,  whatever  they  may  be,         -^" 
which  this  or  that  man  finds,  at  any  time  or  from   TheSum'mum 
time  to  time,  inseparable  from  his  own  sense  of  moral        EtMc. 
right,  and  therefore  commanded  by  his  conscience; 
for  instance,  the  religious  creed,  the  religious  prac- 
tices, which  he  cannot  imagine  not  to  be  imperative, 
are  not  to  be  imposed  on  others,  not  to  be  included 
in  the  general  End  of  ethic,  either  by  himself  or  by 
the  ethical  enquirer.     Future  agreements  of  charac- 
ters, future  harmonies  of  moral  ends,  must  be  left  to 
the  future.     The  point  of  actual  universal  agreement 
is  the  point  to  be  insisted  on  in  all  cases ;  the  diverg- 
ences from  this  point  onwards,  the  difi'erent  modes 
of  realising  what  is  still  left  indefinite  in  its  ideal, 
must  be  left  undetermined ;  only  the  ideal  itself,  de- 
fined by  the  traits  universally  recognised,  is  the  Sum- 
mum  Bonum  of  ethical  science.     These  traits  are  the 
common  starting-point ;  the  ideal  of  these  traits,  un- 
known except  that  it  contains  them,  is  the  common 
goal.     Here  is  the  rock  on  which  most  systems  of 
ethic  have  made  shipwreck,  some  from  adopting  an 
End  too  small  and  special,  others  from  adopting  one 
too  large  and  indefinite,  as  will  be  shown  presently. 

4.  Another  thing  which  we  know  about  the  End 
of  ethic,  and  which  is  a  condition  fulfilled  by  that 
now  exhibited,  is  that  it  consists  in  energy  or  in  ac- 
tion. It  is  not  a  thing  to  be  possessed  or  enjoyed, 
but  a  life ;  something  for  a  man  to  do,  something  for 
him  to  be.  He  is  to  be  a  Subject  so  and  so  defined, 
that  is,  defined  as  feeling,  thinking,  and  doing,  justice 
and  love,  —  ov  yvSxrig  ahXa,  ■r^a|/?.  Accordingly  the 
End  embraces  not  only  single  emotions,  acts,  thoughts, 
but  habits  and  characters  springing  from  and  formed 


24 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


§78. 

The  Summum 

Bonum  in 

Ethic. 


out  of  these.  It  is  a  Character;  as  yet  ideal,  it  is 
true,  except  that  it  contains  the  universally  recog- 
nised traits;  but  still  a  character  containing  those 
tendencies,  not  merely  a  single  state  of  consciousness 
containing  them;  a  character  not  merely  a  moment 
of  character ;  or  rather,  to  apply  Aristotle's  words,  a 
moment  of  character, — 'in  Is  h  ^ico  rskiioo^  a  character 
and  a  life  as  well. 

5.  Finally,  since  there  are  two  universally  recog- 
nised traits  in  the  End  of  ethic,  and  these  are  to  be 
predominant  not  only  over  other  emotions,  thoughts, 
and  actions,  but  also  over  these  exhibited  in  charac- 
ters; are  to  be  themselves  dominant  in  a  character, 
bringing  other  types  of  character  into  agreement  with 
that  ideal  type,  as  yet  only  distinguished  by  these 
traits;  therefore  we  know  something  more  of  this 
End  of  ethic  than  merely  these  traits,  and  that  they 
are  to  have  ideal  perfection;  we  know  that  they  are 
to  be,  in  their  ideal  state,  a  harmony  of  emotions, 
thoughts,  and  actions,  and  a  harmony  of  characters 
formed  from  them.  We  do  not,  it  is  true,  know  in 
what  this  harmony  will  consist,  we  do  not  know  it  in 
its  first  intention ;  for  to  know  this  would  be  to  know 
the  ideal  End  itself  in  its  first  intention.  We  only 
know  a  second  intention  of  it,  its  character  of  being 
a  harmony  of  emotions,  thoughts,  actions,  and  cha- 
racters. This  general  or  characterising  determination 
of  the  End  lies  in  the  two  traits  themselves,  which 
are  its  known  part  or  definition,  justice  and  love. 
They  cannot  be  operative  without  tending  to  such  a 
harmony.  Farther,  we  may  characterise  this  har- 
mony, and  the  ideal  state  which  it  pervades,  as  hap- 
piness, Aristotle's  ivhm^ovia.  It  is  certainly  a  kind  of 
zvh(n\jjovi(x,^  a  kind  of  happiness  ;   though  whether  it 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  25 

be  the  greatest  happiness  I  cannot  say,  for  I  know  of      ^ook  ii. 
no  means  of  measuring  happiness,  the  amount  of  one         —:r ' 
kind  against  the  amount  of  another  kind,  one  man's    The  luinmum 

1  •  •    1  1  1  TT     1        >  V  /  Bonum  in 

happmess  with  another  man  s.  Had  zvdai[jjoviu  been  Ethic. 
capable  of  definition  by  analysis,  Aristotle  would 
no  doubt  have  so  defined  it.  Happiness,  then,  cha- 
racterises the  ideal  Summum  Bonum,  but  does  not 
enter  into  its  analysis.  The  kind  of  happiness  which 
it  contains  is  definable  only  by  the  traits  of  love  and 
justice,  and  of  the  harmony  which  springs  from  them. 
Everything  in  the  Summum  Bonum  is  referable  to 
these  two  traits,  and  explicable  by  them  only. 

6.  Some  of  the  Ends  which  have  been  proposed 
by  ethical  writers  as  the  account  of  the  nature  of 
good  and  right  seem  to  be  too  small  and  special  for 
the  purpose,  and  so  to  require  a  justification  them- 
selves rather  than  to  be  the  source  of  justification  for 
other  principles.  Benevolence,  for  instance,  or  sym- 
pathy ;  for  thus  stated  alone,  as  the  End  of  ethic,  it 
is  of  course  opposed  to  self-love  or  care  for  one's  own 
interest.  Clearly,  when  benevolence  is  put  forward, 
we  always  ask  the  further  question  Why  is  it  right? 
So  also  of  self-love,  even  supported  by  enlightened 
prudence,  and  shown  to  be  not  incompatible  with  the 
interests  of  others.  We  again  always  ask  Why  is  it 
right?  So  too  of  both  together,  "the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest  number;"  it  is  too  small  in  one 
respect,  namely,  that  it  requires  a  justification.  Hap- 
piness is  happiness,  true;  but  is  happiness  right?  I 
mean  by  putting  the  question  not  to  dispute  that 
happiness  is  compatible  with  right,  but  to  show  that 
the  two  things  are  distinct,  that  the  question  can  be 
asked.  That  is  to  say,  happiness  may  exist  de  facto 
mthout  its  being  known  to  exist  de  jure.     Happiness 


26  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      oifers  HO  handle  to  the  judgment ;    it  is  a  general 

-^"       name  for  pleasureable  feeling,  the  material  element, 

TheSummum   the  emotional  element  only  apart  from  the  formal. 

Ethic.        At  most  it  can  contain  only  the  motive  of  conduct. 

This  it  does  contain,  as  will  be  seen. 

7.  In  another  respect,  happmess,  even  the  ap- 
parently more  definite  "  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number,"  is  too  large  and  indefinite  to  serve 
as  the  End  of  ethic.  All  kinds  of  emotions  have  their 
pleasures,  or  are  capable  of  pleasure ;  pleasure  can 
only  be  defined  by  the  emotion  to  which  it  belongs 
or  in  which  it  arises;  to  say  that  the  greatest  plea- 
sure is  the  End  of  ethic  is  to  tell  us  nothing  about 
the  End  at  all ;  the  question  always  recurs,  What 
sort  of  pleasure  is  the  greatest  ?  Again,  to  say  that 
the  End  consists  not  only  in  pleasure,  but  in  the 
greatest  pleasure  or  in  the  greatest  pleasure  or  hap- 
piness of  the  greatest  number,  is  to  add  two  still  more 
obscure  explanations  to  the  already  obscure  explana- 
tion of  happiness  or  pleasure  by  itself.  The  greatest 
pleasure, — true,  but  what  sort  of  pleasure  is  the  great- 
est ;  of  the  greatest  number, — true,  but  may  not  your 
pleasures  diminish  in  dignity  as  they  increase  in  area  ? 
May  not  the  smallest  amount  of  pleasure  be  shared 
among  the  largest  number  of  people  ?  Bentham,  I  am 
aware,  has  met  these  questions  by  showing  that  there 
is  a  pretty  general  agreement  about  the  relative 
amount  or  greatness  of  pleasures.  But  he  has  not 
shown  that  pleasure  can  be  weighed  against  pleasure 
except  by  the  actual  choice  of  one  and  neglect  of  an- 
other. It  is  the  habit,  the  character,  formed  by 
repeated  acts  of  choice,  which  enables  this  opinion 
to  be  formed,  and  produces  the  general  agreement  of 
opinions.  But  we  are  seeking  not  only  a  more  definite 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETIIIC.  27 

conception  of  the  End  than  we  have  at  present,  but      ijook  ii, 
we  are  seeking  one  which  is  to  be  the  justification  of        -^—' 
habit,  not  one  of  which  habit  is  the  justification.     If  TheSummum 
the  opinion  of  such  and  such  pleasures  being  greater        Ethic. 
than  others,  of  such  and  such  pleasures  enjoyed  by 
one  number  of  men  being  greater  than  such  and  such 
pleasures   enjoyed  by  another  number   of  men,  an 
opinion  founded  on  habit  and  on  agreement  among 
men  of  different  habits,  is  the  ultimate  End  of  ethic, 
then  habit  and  agreement,   irrespective   of  ivhat  is 
habitual  and  agreed  upon,  irrespective   of  the  End 
itself,  is  the  only  source  of  what  is  good  and  right. 
De  facto  habit  and  agreement  alone,  that  which  above 
everything  needs  to  be  judged  and  criticised,  is  made 
in  this  theory  the  ultimate  and  only  source  of  judg- 
ment and  criticism ;  a  rule  of  thumb  becomes  accepted 
as  the  moral  law. 

8.  Wherever  there  is  such  an  agreement  on  the  re- 
lative greatness  of  pleasures,  the  pleasures  are  always 
defined  by  the  emotion  or  its  framework,  in  which 
they  arise  ;  they  have  no  other  definition.  These 
emotions  and  frameworks  are  really  that  which  is 
meant  by  the  term  pleasures.  (See  Bentham's  Prin- 
ciples of  Morals  and  Legislation,  Chap,  iv, )  When 
we  say  that  we  prefer,  or  have  found  by  experience 
that  we  prefer,  such  and  such  pleasures  to  others, 
or  think  them  greater  than  others,  what  we  mean 
is,  that  such  and  such  emotions  or  frameworks  have 
been  found  to  predominate  in  actual  frequent  acts  of 
choice  over  others,  or  to  exclude  others.  It  is  the 
emotions  and  their  frameworks  that  are  compared, 
and  furnish  the  means  of  comparing  the  pleasures. 
If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  have  an  End  of  ethic  not 
merely  given  by  de  facto  habit,  but  founded  on  a 


28 


THE  LOGIC  or  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


Ethic. 


knowledge  and  comparison  of  the  nature  of  the  feel- 
ings selected  and  selected  from,  it  is  to  the  analysis 
The  Summum  of  the  cmotions  aiid  their  frameworks  that  we  must 

Bonum  in 

go,  and  not  to  the  general  characteristic  or  descrip- 
tion of  these  by  the  greatest  pleasure.     I  am  very 
far  from  depreciating  the  immense  services  rendered 
by  Bentham  to  practical  morals  and  legislation;  very 
far   from   forgetting   how  needful   it   was  to  break 
through  the  trammels  of  narrow  special  systems  of 
ethic,  as  well  as  of  barbarous  laws.     But  I  must  still 
think  that  the  great  principle  which  he  placed  as  the 
ultimate  ground  of  moral  approbation,  the  greatest 
happiness  principle,  or  the  principle  of  utility, — ad- 
mirable as  a  lever,  admirable  as  an  appeal  ad  popu- 
lum, — is  entirely  untenable  in  the  position  he  assigned 
to  it  in  ethic,  as  the  ultimate  End  of  action.     It  may 
characterise  that  End,  be   a  description,  a  "  second 
intention"  of  it,  if  I  may  again  use  this  technicality ; 
but  it  gives  us  no  knowledge  of  the  End  itself,  and 
affords  no  ground  of  justification  for  actions  tending 
towards  it.     Such  a  determination  of  the  End  sup- 
plies us  with  a  tribunal  for  judging  actions,  a  tri- 
bunal which  consists  of  all  those  who  happen  to  take 
the  same  general  view  of  happiness ;  but  it  offers  no 
means  of  finding  criteria  more  special  than  itself,  or 
of  effecting  any  further  agreement  among  men  by 
proof  founded  on  such  criteria  and  their  relation  to 
the  End.    We  ask,  as  it  were,  for  a  principle  of  juris- 
prudence, and  it  gives  us  the  custom  of  a  court. 

9.  I  venture  to  insist  still  farther  on  this  objec- 
tion drawn  from  my  distinction  between  first  and 
second  intentions.  It  is  the  cardinal  distinction  in 
all  metaphysical  method,  and  was  so  stated  in  "  Time 
and   Space"   §    10.      I  had  occasion  to  appl)'^  it,  in 


THE  LOGIC  OE  ETHIC. 


29 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


§78. 


that  work,  to  the  exammation  of  Hegel's  Looic ;  it 
is  equally  applicable  to  Bentham's  Ethic.  The  dis- 
tinction  briefly  stated  is  this.  An  object  in  its  first  The  Summum 
intention  is  an  object  abstracted  from  all  other  ob-  Etiiic 
jects,  and  considered,  analysed,  in  relation  to  con- 
sciousness alone,  that  is,  considered  as  what  it  is  ; 
and  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  object  is 
large  or  small,  simple  or  complex.  An  object  in  its 
second  intention  is  one  considered  in  relation  to 
some  other  object  or  objects  in  consciousness,  and 
the  terms  describing  it  as  so  related  are  terms  de- 
scribing it  in  some  one  or  more  of  its  second  inten- 
tions, which  are  as  numerous  as  the  objects  with 
which  it  is  related ;  its  causes  and  effects,  its  relative 
size,  intensity,  and  number,  are  among  such  second 
intentions.  It  is  clear  that,  before  we  can  know  any 
second  intention  of  an  object,  we  must  know  some- 
thing of  the  object  in  its  first  intention,  for  we  must 
know  what  the  object  is  which  we  then  are  to  con- 
sider in  relation  to  other  objects.  Second  intentions 
then  in  all  cases  are  founded  upon  first  intentions, 
and  are  relations  between  them;  and  no  second  in- 
tention can  be  the  ultimate  ground  of  a  system. 
For  either  the  first  intentions,  between  which  it  is 
the  relation,  are  known,  in  which  case  the  whole  ob- 
ject, the  relation  and  its  parts  together,  forming  an 
object  in  its  first  intention,  is  the  ground  of  the  sys- 
tem ;  or  the  first  intentions  are  not  known,  and  then 
there  is  no  relation  sufiiciently  definite  to  serve  as 
such  a  ground. 

lo.  Now  Bentham's  "greatest  happiness"  is  a 
relation  between  pleasures  ;  but  pleasures  are  only 
known  in  their  first  intention  by  the  emotion  and 
framework  in  which  they  arise;  this  gives  the  kind 


30  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.  of  pleasure ;  and  their  relative  quantity,  intensity,  or 
— 1-'  amount,  is  only  known  by  observing  which  emotions 
TheSummum  and  frame works  usually  supplant  others,  as  described 
Ethic.  in  §  54  (and  see  also  §  57,  7-10).  The  "greatest 
happiness  principle"  therefore  picks  out  two  rela- 
tions between  emotions,  relations  known  and  defi- 
nable only  by  knowledge  of  the  emotions  themselves, 
and  makes  these  relations,  expressed  by  the  term 
"greatest  happiness,"  the  ultimate  ground  and  basis 
of  a  system  of  ethic ;  all  its  power  of  serving  as  such 
ground  being  due,  not  to  the  relations,  but  to  the 
emotions  between  which  they  subsist.  The  definite 
meanings  of  the  terms  'ought,'  'right,'  'wrong,' 
are  thus  suspended  upon  the  indefinite  meaning  of 
'utility.'  "When  thus  interpreted,"  says  Bentham, 
Chap.  i.  X.  of  work  cited,  "  the  words  ought^  and  right 
and  iv7'07ig,  and  others  of  that  stamp,  have  a  mean- 
ing :  when  otherwise,  they  have  none." 

1 1 .  The  very  vagueness  of  the  terras,  utility, 
greatest  happiness,  and  so  on,  serves  to  win  them 
credit,  since  no  moralist  denies  that  what  is  morally 
best  and  right  is  the  highest  utility,  the  greatest  hap- 
piness ;  that  is,  that  these,  being  known,  are  what  will 
turn  out  to  be  beneficial  in  the  highest  degree  we 
can  conceive.  But  the  question  in  ethic  is,  which  of 
these  two  characters  is  the  known  one,  which  known 
only  through  the  other.  It  is  the  most  known  one 
which  must  be  the  basis  of  an  ethical  system.  Is 
pleasure  the  source  of  right  ?  No,  it  is  not  even  co- 
extensive with  it,  for  some  bad  things  are  pleasant. 
But  is  the  greatest  pleasure  ?  May  be ;  but  what  is 
the  greatest  pleasure?  We  are  thrown  back  upon 
analysis. 

12.  This  cannot  be  called,  to  use  a  phrase  of 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


31 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 

§78. 


Ethic. 


§79. 

The  motive  La 

Ethic. 


Bentham's,  a  "  trifling  verbal  difficulty ;"  it  is  an  ob- 
jection both  just  and  important.  Just,  for  the  rea- 
sons already  given ;  and  important,  because  from  the  The  Summnm 
substitution  of  a  perfectly  indefinite  rsXog,  or  Sum- 
mum  Bonum,  happiness  in  place  of  some  definite 
emotion  or  emotions,  flows  directly  the  consequence 
that  habit  and  opinion  are  made  supreme  in  ethical 
questions,  and  that  the  .question.  What  is  de  jure 
right,  is  transformed  into  the  question,  What  is  com- 
monly and  de  facto  supposed  to  be  so.  It  is  true 
that  we  are  in  no  worse  position  than  was  Aristotle, 
with  his  appeal  to  ojg  6  ayot&og  opiasis.  So  much  I  ad- 
mit; but  have  we  not  grounds  for  claiming  a  better 
position  ? 

§  79.  I.  If  a  conjecture  is  permissible,  it  may  be 
conjectured  that  the  circumstance  of  the  greatest 
pleasure  being  attached  to  the  determining  motive, 
in  all  particular  cases  of  choice  and  conduct,  was 
that  which  led  to  this  characteristic  being  adopted 
as  the  definition  of  the  Summum  Bonum.  Of  a  good 
thing  we  all  choose  to  have  much  rather  than  little, 
of  a  bad  thino;  little  rather  than  much.  This  beino; 
the  general  character  of  all  our  actions  in  particular, 
it  seemed  only  necessary  to  express  it  in  the  most 
general  terms,  to  sum  the  cases,  in  order  to  find  the 
general  character  of  the  whole.  But  it  was  forgotten 
that  this  process  could  only  give  the  general  cha- 
racter of  what  all  action  is,  not  of  what  all  action 
ought  to  be.  Again,  the  relative  degrees  or  inten- 
sities of  pleasure  in  particular  cases,  apart  from  the 
emotions  and  frameworks  to  which  they  belong,  are 
just  as  indefinite  and  uncommensurable  as  in  the 
general  sum  of  the  whole. 

2.  Therefore,  although  we  may  say,  and  indeed 


32  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

^Ch^i""  irif'sr  with  great  probability,  that  the  actual  deter- 
-—  mining  force  in  any  or  all  cases  of  action  is  cha- 
Tbe  motive  in  ractcriscd  or  accompanied  by  the  greatest  pleasure, 
we  do  not  derive  from  this  any  law  of  the  actual 
course  of  choice  or  action;  we  know  that  what  is, 
has  been,  or  will  be  done  is  accompanied  by  the 
greatest  pleasure  possible  at  the  time,  but  not  that 
what  we  think  the  greatest  pleasure  possible  at  the 
time  is,  has  been,  or  will  be  done.  Knowing  what 
is  done,  we  may  say  it  is  the  most  pleasureable  course 
open;  but,  conversely,  the  most  pleasureable  course 
open  is  only  known  by  knowing  what  is  actually  done. 
Only  when  by  experience,  observation  and  remem- 
brance, we  know  what  objects,  what  pleasures,  have 
been  preferred  to  others,  we  may  infer,  conversely, 
that,  when  the  known  objects  and  pleasures  are  in 
question,  the  most  pleasureable  will  be  actually  done. 

3.  There  is,  therefore,  very  little  to  be  said  about 
the  motive  in  the  logic  of  ethic.  The  actual  motives 
of  choice  and  action  are,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prin- 
cipal object  of  thought  for  those  who  aim  at  reform- 
ing actual  customs,  opinions,  actions,  and  institutions, 
or  at  erecting  new  principles  and  standards  of  opi- 
nion. It  is  upon  them  that  the  chances  of  success 
depend ;  they  must  be  appealed  to  and  swayed.  The 
study  of  the  actual  course  of  events,  so  as  to  dis- 
tinguish first  what  is  alterable  from  what  is  unalter- 
able, and  secondl}^,  in  the  former,  what  is  desirable 
from  what  is  undesirable,  in  detail,  and  with  a  view 
to  immediate  practice,  this  is  the  field  where  the 
motives  of  choice  and  action  require  a  lengthy  treat- 
ment. 

4.  All  kinds  of  emotion  and  passion  have  their 
pleasures  as  well  as  their  pains;  all  may  at  different 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  33 

times  and  in  different  circumstances  become  actually      book  ti. 
operative  motives,  and  of  course  with  different  de- 


§79. 


grees  of  force,  measured  we  may  say  generally  by  The  inotiVe  in 
the  intensity  of  the  pleasure.  Motives  which  have 
been  or  may  be  actual,  or  de  facto  causes  of  choice 
and  action,  de  facto  in  point  of  kind,  though  not 
always  operative,  these  are  the  material,  as  it  were, 
of  ethic,  the  matter  to  be  moulded,  by  means  of  the 
two  conceptions,  the  Summum  Bonum  and  the  Cri- 
terion. Among  these  de  facto  motives  are  always 
found  some  which  are  de  jure.  The  practical  pro- 
blem of  ethic  and  of  action  is  to  find  which  are  de 
jure,  and  to  make  these  the  actual  motives.  The 
problem  of  the  logic  of  ethic  is  to  find  what  the 
leverage  for  this  consists  in,  that  is,  what  is  the  na- 
ture of  the  Summum  Bonum,  and  what  of  the  Cri- 
terion. The  detailed  application  is  the  practical 
problem,  which  alone  requires  the  detailed  consider- 
ation of  the  material  or  field  of  action,  the  Motives 
of  actual  conduct. 

5.  Much  has  been  said  about  persons  acting  from 
mixed  motives,  and  much  acuteness  is  sometimes  dis- 
played in  pointing  out  an  element  of  self-love  or  self- 
interest  in  the  motives  of  actions  which  appear  to 
flow  from  motives  of  benevolence  or  public  feeling 
alone.  It  is  sometimes  thought  also  that  to  prove 
a  mixture  of  self-interest  in  a  motive  is  to  condemn 
that  motive  as  a  low  one.  The  truth  is,  that  all 
motives  which  can  be  analysed  at  all  are  mixed  ; 
they  contain  an  element  of  pleasure  which  is  the 
evidence  of  their  motive  power,  and  they  contam  a 
certain  kind  of  emotion  and  framework  which  fur- 
nishes the  definition  of  what  they  are.  Without  the 
pleasure  we  should  not  know  that  they  were  motives, 

VOL.  II.  D 


34 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


§79. 
The  motive 
Ethic. 


in 


without  the  emotion  and  framework  we  should  not 
know  what  kind  of  motives  they  were.  Two  kinds 
of  elements  are  discoverable  in  every  motive,  first 
the  pleasure,  which  is  the  evidence  of  the  causa  ex- 
istendi  of  the  course  actually  followed  by  the  redin- 
tegration; secondly,  the  emotion  and  its  framework, 
which  are  the  causa  cognoscendi,  or  evidence  of  the 
kind  of  actions  selected  and  selected  from.  From 
this  latter  element  in  motives  is  selected,  by  the  logic 
of  ethic,  the  criterion  of  the  right  and  the  good.  The 
criterion  may  be  itself  pleasureable,  and  in  this  re- 
spect a  cle  facto  motive. 

6.  Had  Bentham  placed  Utility  under  the  head 
of  motive,  in  his  logic,  and  excluded  it  from  the 
heads  of  end  and  criterion,  instead  of  the  reverse, 
he  would,  I  think,  have  been  nearer  the  truth.  The 
de  facto  motive  is  that  to  which  is  attached  the  great- 
est attainable  pleasure,  the  greatest  pleasure  of  those 
in  contemplation  at  the  time  of  action.  This  truth, 
that  pleasure  is  the  universal  motive  power,  spreads 
itself  wrongly,  in  his  theory,  over  the  domains  of  the 
other  two  heads ;  wrongly  because  pleasure  offers  no 
cause  of  knowing  the  nature  of  emotions  or  states  of 
consciousness,  because  the  greatest  of  any  two  plea- 
sures is  distinguished,  in  the  last  resort,  only  by  the 
fact  of  its  supplanting  the  other.  The  immediately 
practical  purpose  of  Bentham's  writings  it  was  which 
no  doubt  led  him  to  fall  into  this  confusion,  and 
assume  the  end  and  the  criterion  of  morals  to  be 
nothing  more  than  the  motive  repeated,  though  on 
a  larger  scale.  When  he  asked  for  the  criterion,  he 
really  asked  how  we  came  to  choose  this  rather  than 
that,  and  received  for  answer  the  de  facto  motive ;  and 
again,  when  he  asked  for  the  ultimate  end,  he  really 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETIIIC. 


35 


asked,  not  what  it  was,  but  how  we  came  to  have 
one,  and  here  also  the  answer  was  given  in  the  same 
terms  in  which  it  was  put,  namely.  By  the  urgino- 
force  of  the  actual  motive,  pleasure.  It  may  be  sur- 
mised also,  that  the  very  generality  and  vagueness 
of  the  End,  in  Utilitarianism,  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number,  has  chiefly  contributed  to 
win  for  the  theory  its  great  number  of  adherents 
among  practical  reformers,  too  busy  for  logic ;  what- 
ever was  the  particular  class  of  objects  Avhich  each 
reformer  might  have  most  at  heart,  the  existence  of 
a  professedly  all-embracing  theory  afforded  him  a 
banner  and  watchword  under  which  to  fight,  a  justi- 
fication in  the  eyes  of  the  public  at  large  for  his 
efforts  at  reform,  while  at  the  same  time  its  vague- 
ness and  generality  bound  him  to  no  particular  view 
or  special  aim,  but  left  him  free  to  interpret  the 
"greatest  happiness"  in  his  own  way.  He  enlisted 
in  a  service  which  was  irreproachable,  and  required 
no  sacrifices;  the  theory  lent  its  name,  (it  was  all  it 
had  to  lend) ;  he  lent  that  name  his  adherence. 

§  80.  I.  The  Criterion  is  the  point  upon  which 
hinges  the  greater  part  of  the  most  practically  im- 
portant questions  in  ethic.  Of  the  two  elements  in 
voluntary  action,  the  historical  or  de  facto  element 
is  exhausted  by  the  Motive.  The  causa  cognoscendi 
of  what  is  right  and  good,  the  reason  for  immediate 
approbation  of  one  act  over  another,  remains ;  this  is 
the  Criterion.  It  makes  no  difterence  whether  the 
approbation,  the  reason  or  criterion  of  which  is  now 
sought,  is  the  approbation  of  one  person  for  the  acts 
of  others,  or  for  his  own  acts,  nor  whether,  in  either 
case,  it  is  approbation  after  the  fact,  or  before  it,  or 
so  immediately  before  it  as  to  combine  with  the  mo- 


BooK  n. 
Ch.  n. 

§79. 

The  motive  in 

Ettiic. 


§  80.  _ 
The  criterion 
in  Ethic. 


36 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 

§80. 

The  criterion 

in  Ethic. 


tive  of  action.  The  criterion  must  be  the  same  in  all 
cases ;  and  therefore  I  shall  keep  before  me  especially 
the  last-mentioned  case,  as  always  speaking,  where 
possible,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Subject  en- 
gaged in  action.  The  question  then  is,  what  is  the 
criterion  which  the  Subject  adopts,  or  ought  to  adopt, 
as  the  reason  for  his  approving  one  act  and  not  an- 
other, in  the  moment  of  choice  between  them. 

2.  By  a  Criterion  is  meant  not  that  feature  which 
makes  the  act  right,  but  that  which  makes  us  sup- 
pose it  right ;  not  that  which  will  make  us  judge  it 
right  ultimately,  but  that  which  makes  us  judge  it 
right  now:  the  evidence  which  we  have  at  our  com- 
mand,  at  the  moment  of  action,  that  the  act  indicated 
by  it  will  prove  to  be  right  and  good  when  examined 
accordino;  to  truth.  We  have  no  immediate  know- 
ledge  of  the  true  goodness  or  rightness  of  any  act ; 
this  depends  on  its  conformity,  its  quality  of  leading 
up  to  the  true  ideal,  the  true  End  or  Summum  Bo- 
num.  The  End  makes  everything  right  that  is  right, 
even  the  Criterion  itself.  The  determination  of  the 
End,  therefore,  logically  precedes  that  of  the  Crite- 
rion. We,  in  logic  of  ethic,  can  only  judge  and  estab- 
lish a  criterion  by  reference  to  the  End ;  while,  in 
actual  choice  and  in  the  particular  actions  of  every 
day,  the  criterion  is  our  guide  for  conducting  them 
towards  the  End.  It  stands  between  the  two,  being 
less  general  and  abstract  than  the  End,  more  general 
and  abstract  than  the  particular  act.  Two  or  rather 
perhaps  three  things  are  requisite  in  order  to  an  act 
being  ultimately  or  truly  right,  first  the  End  must 
be  truly  conceived,  secondly  a  true  Criterion  must 
be  correctly  applied.  Or,  as  Abelard  says  in  his 
Ethica,  or  Scito  teipsum.  Cap.  xii.  "  Non  est  intentio 


THE  LOGIC  OP  ETHIC. 


37 


bona  dicenda,  quia  bona  videtur,  sed  insuper  quia 
talis  est,  sicut  existimatur."  The  truth  of  the  cri- 
terion depends  on  that  of  the  End,  from  which  it  is 
derived;  yet  the  End  is  not  less  subjective  than  the 
criterion.  Truth  in  ethic,  no  less  than  in  speculation, 
means  that  view  of  the  phenomena  which  will  stand 
the  test  of  the  most  rigorous  and  continued  exami- 
nation ;  and  it  is  just  as  possible  to  adopt  a  false 
End  as  to  adopt  a  false  criterion  of  conduct.  Truth 
in  ethic,  as  well  as  in  speculation,  is  suspended  upon 
the  result  of  future  experience,  that  is,  it  is  an  ideal. 
("Time  and  Space"  §  62.)  For  the  purpose  of  the 
present  argument,  however,  I  assume  the  End  already 
given  to  be  the  true  one. 

3 .  The  importance  of  distinguishing  the  criterion 
from  the  End  is  shown  by  the  consequences  of  con- 
fusing them,  namely,  that  acts  flowing  from  the 
upright  application  of  the  criterion  are  thought  to 
be  eo  ipso  invested  with  the  goodness  of  the  End ; 
whereas,  not  only  may  a  wrong  criterion  be  adopted, 
but  also  the  application  of  a  right  one  is  subject  to 
mistake,  being  dependent  upon  the  degree  of  know- 
ledge and  state  of  feeling  of  the  actor.  Both  errors 
however  are  reducible  to  one ;  a  wrong  criterion  is 
never  adopted  except  by  mistake  in  the  application 
of  a  right  one,  supposing  the  End  to  be  the  true  one ; 
for  the  general  and  abstract  feature,  which,  being 
derived  from  the  End,  makes  the  criterion  what  it 
is,  is  derived  immediately  from  the  End,  and  only 
becomes  a  wrong  criterion  by  being  combined  with 
other  feelings,  with  emotions  and  frameworks,  owing 
to  experience  of  life,  to  habits  and  tendencies  of  cha- 
racter, which  from  that  very  combination  are  thought 
good  and  right,  yet  may  turn  out  not  conformable 


Book  If. 
On.  II. 


§80. 

The  criterion 

ill  Ethic. 


1969£2 


38 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  II. 

§80. 

The  criterion 

in  Ethic. 


to  the  End,  when  they  are  examined  by  the  light  of 
truth.  This  consequence  of  confusing  the  criterion 
and  the  End  is  the  error  to  which  rehgious  systems 
are  most  exposed,  just  as  an  opposite  error,  arising 
from  confusion  of  the  motive  with  the  End,  the  error 
of  ehminating  de  jure  considerations  from  ethic  al- 
together, attaches  most  to  utilitarian  theories. 

4.^  The  upright  application  of  a  criterion  honestly 
believed  to  be  true,  in  any  action,  justifies  the  act 
and  the  actor,  that  is  to  say,  secures  him  from  re- 
morse, secures  to  him  a  good  conscience,  as  well  as 
the  approbation  of  others,  so  far  as  that  act  alone  is 
concerned.  But  it  does  not  secure  their  approba- 
tion or  his  own  to  other  features  of  his  character,  to 
his  other  modes  of  reasoning  or  feeling,  or  to  the 
series  of  acts  as  a  whole,  to  which  the  single  act  in 
question  belongs.  If  his  whole  conduct  is  governed 
by  the  same  criterion,  his  whole  conduct  is  justified 
by  it ;  but  it  may  happen  that  there  is  a  discrepancy 
between  his  conduct  as  a  whole  and  a  single  act 
which  is  part  of  it.  The  justification  derived  from 
the  upright  application  of  a  criterion  honestly  be- 
lieved to  be  true  extends  both  to  the  act  and  to  the 
agent ;  but  it  extends  no  farther,  in  either,  than  it 
has  been  actually  determinant  of  conduct.  Again, 
other  persons  may  disbelieve  in  the  agent's  criterion, 
or  he  himself  may  come  to  disbelieve  in  it ;  that  is, 
it  may  turn  out  a  false  criterion.  This  does  not 
invahdate  its  justification  of  acts  determined  by  it 
while  it  was  believed  true.  The  blame  is  then 
thrown  not  on  the  agent  nor  on  his  act,  but  on  his 
erroneous  belief  in  his  criterion,  and  the  question 
becomes,  how  far  he  is  to  blame  for  this.  Third 
persons  will  say,  '  Believing  as  he  does,  he  is  right 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


39 


in  his  act,  but  his  character  and  conduct  as  a  whole 
is  wrong,  as  we  believe.'  A  slovenly  way  of  ex- 
pressing this  is  to  say,  '  The  agent  is  right,  but  his 
act  wrong  ;'  as  if  the  two  could  be  separated.  What 
is  an  act  ?  An  agent  in  motion.  The  reason  for 
taking  this  false  distinction  between  agent  and  act 
lies,  no  doubt,  in  the  facility  with  which  the  effects 
of  overt  acts  can  be  classed  and  judged  of,  compared 
to  the  difficulty  of  judging  immanent  acts  of  choice 
alone.  But  it  is  with  immanent  acts  of  choice  that 
we  are  chiefly  concerned  here,  and  with  overt  acts 
only  as  judged  in  foro  conscienti^e  ;  and  in  these  the 
character  of  the  act,  as  good  or  bad,  is  inseparal^le 
from  that  of  the  agent  in  the  act. 

5.  The  first  condition,  then,  which  the  criterion 
to  be  selected  by  the  logic  of  ethic  must  fulfil,  is  that 
it  must  be  such  as  to  justify  or  secure  our  approba- 
tion of  particular  acts  and  the  agents  in  them.  The 
second  condition  is,  that  the  criterion  must  justify 
or  secure  approbation  not  only  of  particular  acts,  but 
also  of  particular  kinds  or  tendencies  of  character. 
In  other  words,  we  want  somethino;  which  shall  p-uide 
us  towards  the  formation  of  a  ri^rht  and  2:ood  cha- 
racter,  as  well  as  towards  the  choice  of  right  and 
good  acts.  Unless  an  act  chosen  conduces  to  the 
formation  of  a  good  character  in  the  actor,  besides 
being  an  addition  to  the  number  of  good  acts,  the 
good  done,  as  it  were,  with  one  hand  is  undone  with 
the  other,  and  a  discrepancy  is  introduced  into  the 
laws  of  conduct,  which  might  be  fatal  to  their  success 
in  leading  to  the  End.  A  criterion  which  did  not 
provide  for  both  points  would  be,  on  that  ground 
alone,  convicted  of  being  a  false  criterion.  Inatten- 
tion to  this  condition  of  a  true  criterion  of  right  has 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


§80. 

The  criterion 

in  Ethic. 


40 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  II. 


§80. 

The  criterion 

in  Ethic. 


led  to  many  mistakes  ;  for  instance,  to  the  famous 
apparent  paradox  of  private  vices  being  public  bene- 
fits. The  state  is  not  served  in  the  best  way  pos- 
sible, when  riches,  for  instance,  increase  but  character 
deteriorates. 

6.  It  will  now  be  evident  in  what  way  I  propose 
to  fill  up  the  third  head  of  logic,  what  I  propose  as 
the  criterion.  It  is  the  Moral  Sense,  the  Conscience. 
This  when  obej^ed  honestly,  and  not  merely  profess- 
edly, and  in  the  true  and  strict  meaning  of  the  term 
Moral  Sense  (§  37),  provides  both  for  the  approba- 
tion of  the  act  and  for  the  approbation  of  the  •  cha- 
racter ;  obeying  it  both  justifies  the  act  and  tends 
to  produce  the  habit  of  acting  rightly.  The  abstract 
and  general  features  of  justice  and  love  are  the  fea- 
tures which  are  sous^ht  for  in  the  act  to  be  chosen  ; 
the  pleasures  inherent  in  them  are  the  actual  motive 
force  in  choosing ;  and  the  same  features  again  are 
the  reason  of  approvmg  when  the  choice  has  been 
made.  They  are  the  de  jure  element,  the  justifica- 
tion of  the  act,  and  the  justification  of  the  character. 
The  other  features,  the  other  emotions,  which  in  dif- 
ferent persons  and  at  difi^erent  times  may  be  combined 
with  these,  forming  a  complex  and  more  concrete 
state  of  feeling,  are  not  to  be  confused  mth  these, 
nor  to  be  considered  as  contributing  to  justify  the 
act.  It  is  not  these  other  features,  nor  yet  the  state 
of  feeling  as  a  whole,  variable  as  they  are  indefinitely 
from  time  to  time,  from  person  to  person,  from  place 
to  place,  but  these  two  elements,  justice  and  love, 
alone,  which  are  the  de  jure,  the  justifying,  element. 
And  these  it  imports  us  to  distinguish  and  apply  in 
practice,  no  less  than  in  the  logical  theory  ;  to  dis- 
tinguish from  their  habitual,  and  often  it  may  be 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC, 


41 


in  Ethic. 


from  their   seemingly  inseparable   accompaniments;       bookii. 
and  to  insist  upon  and  endeavour  tlieir  enforcement,         — ' 
and  their  enforcement  alone,  in  our  thoughts  and    TheSrion 
actions, 

7.  Now  it  may  seem,  at  first  sight,  as  if  two  cri- 
teria and  not  one  were  here  laid  down,  conscience  in 
its  concrete,  accidental,  shape  being  one,  justice  com- 
bined with  love  the  other.  To  this  point  it  is  neces- 
sary to  call  particular  attention,  for  we  are  at  the 
very  centre  of  the  whole  system  of  ethic,  that  central 
link  upon  which  the  whole  fabric  depends.  Here  too 
is  the  great  difficulty  peculiar  to  all  systems  of  the 
Moral  Law  school  of  ethic,  the  objection  which  may 
be  urged  against  them  in  claiming  universal  validity 
for  conscience,  drawn  from  the  opposition  between 
the  dictates  of  conscience,  in  different  persons,  of  dif- 
ferent countries,  different  modes  of  education,  differ- 
ent states  of  civilisation ;  so  that  that  which  claims 
to  be  universally  valid  is  yet  shown  to  command 
opposite  duties,  which  would  be  also  contradictory 
ones  were  they  commanded  at  the  same  moment. 
This  difficulty  is  that  with  which  we  have  to  cope  in 
establishing  a  criterion.  Now  the  criterion  can  only 
be  single ;  which  of  the  two  then  is  to  be  selected  ? 
Conscience  in  its  concrete,  accidental,  shape.  Con- 
science is  the  test,  or  criterion  of  choice,  in  definite, 
particular,  cases;  of  choice  between  this,  that,  and 
the  other,  of  certain  particular  actions  in  the  con- 
crete, brought  before  us  in  representation  at  any 
moment  of  action.  Its  dicta  therefore  are  particular 
and  concrete, — do  this,  avoid  that ;  and  to  such  cases 
the  perceptions  of  justice  and  love  are  not  always 
immediately  and  directly  applicable.  What  then  is 
the  function  of  these  perceptions,  and  why  have  they 


in  Ethic. 


42  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.  been  introduced  here  ?  They  are  the  analysis  of  con- 
7—  science,  the  element  of  moral  validity  in  its  concrete 
The  criterion  dicta,  or,  as  it  wcre,  the  conscience  of  conscience  it- 
self.  But  to  lay  them  down  as  the  criterion  or  imme- 
diate guide  of  conduct  would  be  to  lay  down  what 
might  indeed  be  both  subjectively  and  objectively 
demonstrated,  but  would  not  be  also  subjectively  ob- 
vious or  immediately  applicable.  It  is  not  every  one 
that  would  accept  them,  since  it  requires  an  analytical 
process  to  discern  them ;  while  conscience,  contain- 
ing always  these  elements,  but  holding  them  in  com- 
bination with  other  principles  derived  from  particular 
circumstances  and  education,  is  known  and  admitted 
by  all.  Conscience  then  in  its  concrete,  accidental, 
shape  is  to  be  obeyed;  justice  and  love,  the  analysis 
of  what  is  permanent  and  universal  in  it,  used  to  cor- 
rect conscience  itself;  just  as,  to  take  an  illustration, 
the  existing  law  of  the  land  is  to  be  enforced  even 
where  it  works  harshly,  and  afterwards  repealed  or 
reformed  for  future  application.  Nor  do  I  fear  to 
say  with  Abelard,  taking  an  extreme  case  by  way  of 
illustration,  of  the  persecutors  of  Christ  and  Christian 
martyrs  "qui  tamen  gravius  culpam  peccassent,  si 
contra  conscientiam  eis  parcerent."  Ethica,  Cap.  xiv. 
8.  If  this  analysis  of  what  is  permanent  in  con- 
science is  the  true  one,  obedience  to  conscience  will 
bring,  as  its  result,  these  elements  to  the  light,  and 
establish  them  in  universal  practice.  That  which  has 
been  the  guiding  principle  in  constituting  and  forming 
conscience  will  be  the  guide  in  its  action  afterwards, 
for  this  action  itself  is  nothing  but  a  continuance  of 
the  same  process  of  formation.  Again,  if  any  of  the 
utilitarian  analyses  of  conscience,  or  criteria,  were 
the  true  one,  we  could  only  expect  that  obedience  to 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


43 


conscience  would  produce  its  elements  of  analysis;  if 
conscience  had  been  really  formed  by  habitual  obedi- 
ence to  superior  force,  obedience  to  it  would  result 
in  confirmed  habits  of  such  obedience ;  if  by  constant 
seeking  of  self-interest,  such  self-seeking  would  be 
the  habit  confirmed  ;  if  by  constant  self-sacrificing 
benevolence,  the  confirmed  habit  of  self-sacrificino- 
benevolence  would  arise ;  or  if  by  any  or  all  of  these 
combined,  then  their  combination  would  appear  as 
the  ultimate  issue  of  obedience  to  conscience.  But 
justice  and  love  alone  affbrd,  as  the  analysis  of  con- 
science, a  logically  valid  ground  for  assuming  con- 
science to  be  always  morally  valid  as  a  criterion  of 
conduct.  For  the  criterion  can  have  no  neater 
moral  or  de  jure  validity  than  is  conferred  by  the 
elements  of  which  it  consists.  If  pleasure,  in  any 
of  its  kinds,  high  or  low,  is  the  element  constitutino- 
conscience,  then  the  moral  validity  of  conscience  is 
not  greater  than  that  of  the  pleasure  or  pleasures 
which  are  its  source.  Thus  the  analytical  part  of 
ethic  contains  the  ground  or  reason  of  the  systemati- 
cal part,  the  doctrines  of  the  logic  of  practice.  The 
validity  of  the  criterion  of  conduct  reposes  on  its 
analysis.  Why  do  I  believe  conscience  in  all  its  di- 
versity to  be  the  criterion  of  acts?  Because  I  believe 
that  the  analysis  of  what  is  permanent  in  it,  of  that 
which  makes  it  felt  to  be  right,  is  justice  and  love. 
And  the  End,  upon  which  the  criterion  depends,  is 
itself  grounded  on  a  similar  analysis,  or  justified  by 
it,  in  the  eye  of  philosophy,  as  the  true  End  of  ac- 
tion. 

9.  Every  act  done  or  chosen,  considered  as  occupy- 
ing a  certain  duration  of  time,  is  parted  between  two 
elements,  parallel  or  intertwined  throughout  its  dura- 


BOOK  II. 

Ch.  II. 

§80.  _ 
The  criterion 
in  Ethic. 


44 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II.      tion,  the  motive  and  the  criterion.     Every  act  to  be 
—         done  or  chosen  the  same ;  only  that  here  the  criterion 

§80,  .  .  . 

The  criterion    is  doublc,  onc  part  of  it  beiiio;  affirmative,  the  other 

in  Ethic  .'  ^..  ^,  ' 

negative,  one  the  prmciple  of  selection,  the  other  of 
neglect  or  omission.  All  the  past  is' irreversible;  at 
any  moment  of  choice,  we,  the  volition,  have  to  choose 
only  between  the  next  actions  possible  at  the  mo- 
ment. Here  again  there  is  a  part  with  which  we 
have  nothing  to  do,  the  motive.  God  or  Nature  pro- 
vides for  that ;  we  have  to  do  only  with  the  criterion. 
The  criterion  contains  under  it,  or  applies  to,  all  our 
knowledge  about  the  acts  to  be  chosen  or  avoided, 
including  all  that  we  know  or  suspect  about  the 
prol)able  strength  of  motives,  drawn  from  past  ex- 
perience. The  strength  of  the  motive  in  the  present 
act  is  that  which  at  the  present  moment  is  about  to 
exhibit  itself  in  actual  trial. 

§  81.  I.  Let  us  noAv  institute  a  brief  comparison 
between  this  system  and  others,  and  chiefly  the  Uti- 
litarian theory.  In  the  first  place,  the  Utilitarian 
theory  places  its  whole  trust  in  acquired  habits  and 
acquired  knowledge  of  what  is  preferable;  I  say  its 
whole  trust  because  both  its  End  and  its  Criteria  are 
placed  by  it  in  acquired  knowledge,  and  not  in  emo- 
tions belonging  to  the  nature  of  man  itself,  or  the 
nature  of  his  character.  In  the  present  system,  on 
the  contrary,  both  the  End  and  the  Criterion  are 
found  in  that  nature  and  character,  and  in  features 
of  them  which  are  at  once  universally  present  and 
capable  of  extension  to  any  circumstances  and  any 
degree  of  development.  This  expansibility  of  these 
principles  renders  them  equally  adaptable  with  the 
generality  of  the  corresponding  Utilitarian  principles 
to  the  circumstances  of  life ;  and  they  have  besides 


§81. 
Comparison  of 

this  with 
other  systems. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  45 

the  advantage,  in  a  systematic  or  scientific  point  of      ^^^"^  "• 
view,  of  being  founded  in  the  nature  of  man,  not  in         ^ — 
his  knowledoe   which  is  wanting;  to  the  others.  Thev   Comparison  of 

'-'    '  .  ^      ,  -J  this  with 

are  capable  of  embracing  conceptions  of  what  is  de   other  systems. 
jure,  as  well  as  what  is  de  facto. 

2.  It  has  sometimes  been  objected  to  the  Utili- 
tarian theory,  that  it  requires  what  is  impossible  in 
requiring  an  anticipatory  pursuit  of  the  furthest  con- 
sequences of  acts,  in  order  to  judge  whether  they  are 
according  to,  or  likely  to  produce,  the  greatest  happi- 
ness. This  however  is  a  mistake,  as  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill 
has  well  shown,  in  his  Utilitarianism,  Ch.  ii.  p.  34. 
We  have  acquired  habits  and  acquired  knowledge 
as  to  what  kinds  of  acts  are  most  likely  to  produce 
happiness,  and  the  media  axiomata  thus  stored  up 
are  our  criteria  of  particular  acts,  when  the  moment 
of  choice  comes.  Between  the  kinds  of  pleasures 
again,  and  between  the  kinds  of  character  most  de- 
sirable and  most  conducive  to  hapj)iness,  we  may 
have  recourse  to  the  opinions  and  experience  of  "  the 
most  competent  judges"  in  such  matters.  This  ob- 
jection then  falls  to  the  ground,  but  I  must  still 
urge,  as  I  have  already  done,  that  such  habits  and 
knowledge,  whether  our  own  or  of  "  the  most  com- 
petent judges,"  are  neither  founded  on  an  adequate 
criterion  of  right  theinselves,  nor  able  to  furnish  one 
to  us  who  have  recourse  to  them.  What  is  needed  is 
an  immediate  criterion  of  right,  as  well  as  a  probable 
judgment  about  advantage.  This  is  supplied  by  the 
Conscience,  analysable,  in  its  permanent  part,  into 
the  emotions  of  love  and  justice,  a  criterion  imme- 
diately applicable  to  every  case  of  action  by  our- 
selves, and  among  the  rest  to  the  judgments  which 
we  form  as  to  who  are  "  the  most  competent  judges;" 


46  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

^Ch^ii^'  ^^^'  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^  ^  question  which  has  to  be  decided; 
—  the  tribunal  itself  must  be  tested  as  to  its  compet- 
^°tius^th°^  ence  by  some  criterion.  The  question  between  the 
other  systems.  Utilitarian  theory  and  the  present  theory  is  this, 
Whether  the  ultimate  source  of  justification  lies  in 
the  judgment  of  a  tribunal,  ojg  6  kyoc^og  opigzizv^  or  in 
the  principle  of  that  judgment,  namely,  in  some  par- 
ticular emotion  contained  in  it.  Or,  to  put  the  ques- 
tion of  a  tribunal  aside,  does  the  ultimate  source  of 
justification  of  a  judgment  lie  in  the  judgment  itself 
as  a  whole,  a  judgment  that  pleasure  A  is  better 
than  pleasure  B,  or  in  an  element  of  the  judgment, 
the  criterion  which  it  assumes  to  form  itself  by.  To 
rest  in  the  judgment  as  a  whole  seems  to  me  ana- 
logous, in  ethic,  to  resting,  in  metaphysic,  upon  the 
fact  that  objects  are  objects  of  consciousness,  as  an 
ultimate  datum,  instead  of  resting  on  the  analysis  of 
such  objects,  (see  "Time  and  Space"  §  11);  to  rest 
in  the  judgment  of  a  tribunal,  or  ug  6  ayu9og^  seems 
analogous  to  resting  in  the  dicta  of  a  book,  or  a 
priest,  or  a  council,  in  theology,  instead  of  in  a  fur- 
ther judgment  of  our  own  about  the  validity  of  those 
tribunals.  It  might  indeed  be  the  case,  that  we  were 
compelled  to  do  so;  that  we  could  push  analysis  no 
farther ;  but  if  analysis  can  be  pushed  farther  it  would 
be  well;  our  effort  must  be  to  push  it  as  far  as  it 
will  go ;  the  attempt  to  analyse  farther  is  the  counsel 
of  hope,  the  ambition  of  philosophy. 

3.  To  turn  for  a  moment  to  another  theory  of 
ethic,  the  one  most  opposite  to  that  of  Bentham,  the 
theory  of  Kant.  The  objection  of  impracticability  in 
application  of  the  criterion  to  practice,  which  does 
not  lie  against  Bentham' s  theory,  does  seem  to  me  to 
lie  against  Kant's.    I  have  not  entered  into  a  criticism 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  47 

of  Kant's  theory  in  this  work,  because  it  is  founded  book  n. 
on  an  Ontoloo^ical  basis,  and  the  reasons  urg-ed  agfainst  — ' 
all  Ontology  in  "Time  and  Space"  seem  to  me  to  Comparison  of 
render  it  as  inapt  to  be  the  foundation  of  an  ethical  othersystems. 
as  of  a  purely  metaphysical  superstructure.  Kant's 
universal  criterion  in  ethic  is  the  folio wingf  general 
law :  "  So  act  that  the  maxim  of  thy  will  may  be 
valid  at  all  times  alike  as  the  principle  of  an  uni- 
versal lawgiving ;"  Kritik  der  Praktischen  Vernunft, 
Book  i.  Chap.  i.  §  7.  In  other  words,  Take  as  your 
criterion  that  state  of  mind  which  will  be  valid  as  a 
motive  principle,  not  only  for  you  now  and  here,  but 
for  all  men  everywhere  and  always.  Now  it  is  quite 
true,  that  the  criterion  of  ethic  must  be  capable  of 
universal  application,  that  all  beings  constituted  as 
those  are  who  would  establish  the  criterion  must  be 
conceived  as  amenable  to  the  law  which  it  prescribes. 
But  to  assume  this  characteristic,  this  "  second  in- 
tention," of  the  criterion  as  the  criterion  itself,  is  to 
put  a  generality  in  the  place  of  an  analysis,  to  assume 
as  an  ultimate  criterion  a  statement  about  criteria 
generally,  to  adopt  as  a  criterion  something  which 
must  derive  its  whole  force,  its  whole  applicability  as 
a  criterion  of  conduct,  not  from  itself  but  from  facts, 
or  choices,  or  judgments,  already  known,  or  known 
from  other  sources,  to  be  capable  of  subsumtion 
under  it ;  in  short  it  is  to  commit  the  very  same 
error,  in  point  of  kind,  which  is  committed  by  the 
Utilitarian  theory  according  to  the  preceding  para- 
graph, only  in  the  name  and  interests  of  a  supposed 
Absolute  Moral  Law  from  above,  instead  of  a  general 
search  for  Happiness  from  below.  Kant's  criterion 
would,  in  the  first  place,  require  for  its  application 
a  series  of  media  axiomata  drawn  from  experience, 


48 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  11.      just  as  much  as  Bentham's  does,  thouo;h  this  alone 
Ch.  II.       •;  .      .  ,  ,  . 

—         is  no  obiection  ag-ainst  either  ;   and  in  the  second 

§  81.  "^  .  °  ... 

Comparison  of  place,  and  here  is  the  true  objection,  is  applicable 
other  systems,  oiily  by  thosc  who  havc  attained  the  conception  of  a 
law  binding  on  all  reasoning  beings,  as  such.  To  adopt 
it  as  a  criterion  Avould  be  like  adopting  justice  and 
love,  by  themselves,  and  not  as  involved  in  particu- 
lar consciences,  as  if  in  that  abstract  shape  they  were 
universally  recognised. 

4.  In  what  has  been  here  said  in  criticism  of  the 
Utilitarian  theory,  nothing  can  be  farther  from  my 
meaning  than  to  deny  that  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number  is  or  ought  to  be  the  result  of 
all  conduct.  It  will  no  doubt  characterise  all  results 
of  conduct  in  greater  measure  according  as  the  con- 
duct is  right.  My  objection  lies  against  the  theory 
as  a  theory  of  ethical  logic  or  science.  It  substitutes, 
in  its  End  and  in  its  Criterion,  an  incident,  a  ;Kara 
av[jb^s^7lKog^  an  "accident,"  though  probably  an  "in- 
separable" one,  for  the  thing  itself  which  ought  to  be 
called  End  and  Criterion.  It  is  adopted  chiefly,  I 
believe,  from  the  prevalence  of  the  so-called  practical 
point  of  view,  and  certainly  it  is  founded  on  a  popular 
not  on  a  strict  analysis.  It  is  as  if  botanists  should 
content  themselves  with  the  distinction  between 
flowers  and  fruit,  instead  of  distinguishing  coroUa, 
pistils,  stamens,  ovary,  and  seed.  The  analysis  here 
proposed  is  intended  to  remedy  this  defect  without 
involving,  even  theoretically,  any  loss  of  happiness  in 
the  ultimate  result,  though  the  happiness  is  denied  to 
be  that  which  is  the  proper  aim  and  end  of  action.  It 
is  added,  as  lawyers  say,  "  by  the  act  of  God." 

5.  Bentham  himself  was  fully  aware  of  the  logical 
inconsistency  involved  in  the  popular  language  which 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETinC.  49 

he  adopted.    He  distinguishes,  as  has  been  seen,  mo-      book  n. 
tives  from  intentions,  motives  being  the  various  plea-       ^—' 
sures,  which  he  calls  springs  of  action,  and  intentions   Com|arisou  of 
the  conceptions  of  the  particular  acts  aimed  at  in   othc^r%^tems. 
particular  cases,  and  prompted  by  motives.     "  The 
causes  of  intention,"  he  says,  in  Chap,  viii.,  xiii.  of 
the  work  already  cited,   "  are  called  motives.''     But 
in  thus  adopting  motives  as  one  of  his  categories,  he 
adopts  a  word  and  a  thing  full  of  ambiguity.     See 
his  Chapter  x.   Of  Motives.     In  one  sense  it  is  true, 
as  he  asserts.  Chap,  x.,  x.,  "  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  any  sort  of  motive  that  is  in  itself  a  had  one''     This 
is  true  when  motive  is  taken  to  mean  solely  motive 
power,  without  any  distinction  of  kind  imported  into 
it.     But  in  popular  phrase  a  motive  always  means  a 
pleasure  of  a  particular  kind,  and  motives  in  this  use 
of  the  term  are  always  good  or  bad,  and  have  also 
some  degree  of  goodness  or  badness.     "  To  speak  of 
motives,"  he  says  in  sec.  xiii.,  "  as  of  anything  else, 
one  must  call  them  by  their  names.     But  the  mis- 
fortune is,  that  it  is  rare  to  meet  with  a  motive  of 
which  the  name  expresses  that  and  nothing  more." 
He  means  that  the  name  expresses  not  only  the  kind 
of  motive,  but  some  approbation  or  disapprobation 
as  well.      Bentham  however,  though   aware  of  this 
difficulty  in  the  language  he  had  to  use,  apparently 
thought  that  the  knot  of  the   difficulty  lay  in   the 
name  combining  the  expression  of  approbation  or  dis- 
approbation with  the  kind  of  the  motive,  and  not  in 
its  combining  the   kind  of  motive  with  the  circum- 
stance of  motive  power.  Three  things  being  expressed 
by  the  name  of  any  motive,  namely,  motive  power, 
kind  of  it,  and  praise  or  blame,  he  endeavoured  to 
sunder,  he  drew  a  distinction  between,  the  second 

VOL.  II.  E 


50  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      and  third,   and  not  between  the  first  and   second. 

Ch.  II.  .  . 

^—'  Motives  accordingly  became  with  him  pleasures  of 
Comparison  of  different  kinds,  all  of  them  good,  or  not  bad,  in  them- 
other  systems,  sclvcs,  aiid  bad  or  good,  secondarily,  only  in  respect 
of  their  consequences.  "  If  they  are  good  or  bad,  it 
is  only  on  account  of  their  effects :  good,  on  account 
of  their  tendency  to  produce  pleasure,  or  avert  pain : 
bad,  on  account  of  their  tendency  to  produce  pain 
or  avert  pleasure."  He  thus  deprives  himself  of  all 
means  of  judging  motives  in  or  by  themselves,  not- 
withstanding that  they  are  all  pleasures  of  certain 
kinds;  also  of  the  means  of  judging  of  the  character 
of  ao^ents  as  distino-uished  from  their  actions,  if  it 
is  true  that  the  kind  of  pleasures  which  are  their 
favourites  is  what  makes  the  characters  of  men  good 
or  bad.  Perhaps  it  will  be  said.  Not  so,  for,  though 
he  cannot  judge  of  the  motive,  he  can  of  the  inten- 
tion, and  through  this  of  the  character.  But  here 
too  he  is  precluded,  for  the  intention  also  is  sus- 
pended on  the  result ;  it  is  the  known  or  supposed 
effect  of  an  action,  as  good  or  bad,  which  makes  the 
intention  to  do  that  action  good  or  bad.  The  inten- 
tion is  good  if  the  effect  is  thought  to  be  good,  and 
bad  if  it  is  thought  to  be  bad.  And  similarly  with 
omissions.  The  strength  of  will,  again,  in  doing  or 
neglecting  an  act  whose  effects  are  supposed  to  be 
known,  or  known  to  some  extent,  belongs  to  motives ; 
it  is  a  question  of  their  comparative  strength.  A 
weak  volition  to  do  a  good  thing,  a  strong  volition 
to  do  a  bad  one,  are  bad,  and  conversely;  but  the 
o;oodness  or  badness  of  the  streno;th  in  volition  de- 
pends  on  that  of  the  acts  done  or  omitted,  and  this 
falls  under  one  or  both  of  the  heads,  motive  and  in- 
tention ;   and  both  of  these,  according  to  Bentham, 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHTC.  51 

are  dependent  on  their  anticipated  results.    Bentham,       Book  n. 
therefore,  can  judge  of  nothing  but  the  resulting  plea-         — ' 
sures  or  pains ;  the  pleasures  which,  either  as  motives   comparison  of 
or  as  intentions,  tend  to  produce  these,  and  the  cha-   other  sj^Iems 
racters  of  the  men  who  act  from  these  causes,  are 
withdrawn  from  his  scrutiny  by  his  own  logic ;   he 
can   logically   and   consistently  judge   a   ma7i  to   be 
good  or  bad  in  no  other  way,  and  in  no  other  sense, 
than  he  judges  a  hard  winter  or  a  genial  spring  to 
be  so.    And  yet,  if  he  can  judge  the  pleasures  or  pains 
which  result  from  motives,  the  characters /(9r?/zeG?  by 
motives,  as  good  or  bad,  why  cannot  he  judge  them 
while  they   are    operating  as  motives  and  forming 
characters?     He  judges  them  in  and  by  themselves 
in  the  one  case  ;  why  not  also  in  the  other?     There 
must  be  a  radical  error  in  the  Utilitarian  logic  here. 

6.  It  will  be  already  clear  in  what  I  conceive  this 
error  to  consist.  It  consists  in  drawins:  the  line, 
where  Bentham  draws  it,  between  the  kind  of  motive 
and  the  approbation  or  disapprobation,  and  in  not 
drawing  it  between  the  motive  power  in  the  abstract 
and  the  kind  of  all  or  any  particular  motives.  This 
latter  distinction  is  the  one  drawn  and  exhibited  in 
the  foregoing  §§.  We  obtain  as  result  the  distinc- 
tion between  motive  and  criterion,  in  place  of  Ben- 
tham*s  distinction  between  motive  and  intention,  a 
metaphysical  in  place  of  an  empirical  distinction. 
With  Bentham  motives  are  the  causes  of  intentions, 
feelings  causing  and  preceding  thoughts,  in  full 
agreement  with  the  psychological  analysis  of  emo- 
tions, criticised  in  §  14.  My  Criterion  on  the  other 
hand,  like  all  mental  states  in  representation,  con- 
sists equally  of  emotion  and  frame-svork  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  emotions  already  analysed  in  Chap.  ii.  Book  i. 


52  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      Bentham  too,  like  the  psychological  school  generally, 

- —         seems  to  take  as  much  pains  to  keep  emotion  and 

Comparison  of  framcwork  apart,  to  make  them  stand  in  a  causal 

this  with  .  ^ 

other  systems,  relation  to  cach  other,  as  I  do  to  bring  them  toge- 
ther, to  form  a  theory  in  which  they  appear  together, 
as  they  do  in  nature.  But  while  in  the  j)sycholo- 
gical  analysis  of  emotions  it  was  the  emotions  which 
were  caused  by  the  frameworks,  here,  in  Bentham's 
ethical  theory,  it  is  an  element  in  emotion,  the  emo- 
tional  pleasure,  which  appears  as  the  cause  of  the 
framework.  So  far  indeed  rightly ;  since  here  we 
are  eno;ao;ed  with  voluntary,  outward-ojoino-  there 
with  inyoluntary,  inward-going,  action ;  there  with 
-  causes  as  efficient,  here  with  causes  as  final.  This 
agreement  however  only  serves  to  show  the  intimate 
coherence  of  the  two  schools,  the  psychological  school 
in  analysis,  the  Utilitarian  in  constructive  ethic. 
§82.  (^  82.  I.  It  is  requisite,  in  the  next  place,  to  give 

application  of   somc  accouut  of  the  character  which  the  logic  here 

this  logic.  ,  .         .  .  . 

oflfered  assumes  in  application  to  particular  circum- 
stances and  acts,  to  give  some  notion  of  the  mode  of 
its  practical  working,  and  of  the  colour  which  it  im- 
parts to  life.  Its  application  means  the  application 
of  its  criterion  in  cases  of  choice.  Much  depends, 
in  the  first  place,  on  the  nature  of  the  criterion  itself. 
The  term  Conscience,  which  characterises  this  crite- 
rion, is  in  itself  as  vague  as  the  term  Utility  ;  it  may 
be  honestly  used  to  cover  almost  any  choice  or  any 
action,  because  the  combinations  of  justice  and  love 
may  be  indefinitely  various.  But  it  is  here  main- 
tained, that  the  peculiar  sense  of  moral  validity, 
which  is  the  meaning  of  the  term  Conscience  in  its 
first  intention,  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  attached  exclu- 
sively and  permanently  to  one  combination  of  feeling 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  53 

only,  justice  and  love  themselves ;  that,  wherever  book  ir. 
this  peculiar  sense  of  validity  is  felt,  it  arises  from  — ' 
the  presence  of,  or  from  association  with,  those  feel-  on  the 
ings.  Let  any  one  examine  honestly  for  himself  "'"thisTogk." 
what  he  means  by  the  term,  and  he  will  find  that 
he  means  this  by  it  and  nothing  else.  We  cannot 
then  dispense  with  the  distinction  of  Conscience,  or 
with  the  term  expressing  it,  for  we  want  a  term  to 
express  immediately  felt  moral  validity,  in  whatever 
concrete  shape  it  may  be  clothed ;  but  we  must  ana- 
lyse and  define  it,  in  order  to  rescue  it  from  vague- 
ness, and  to  secure  ourselves  against  its  abuse.  Jus- 
tice and  love,  which  are  the  definition  of  what  is 
valid  in  it,  speak  for  themselves.  If  a  man,  for  in- 
stance, says  that  his  conscience  bids  him  persecute 
opinion,  ask  him  whether  his  sense  of  justice  and 
love  so  bids  him ;  if  not,  be  sure  it  is  not  his  con- 
science that  does,  but  something  which  he  falsely 
takes  for  conscience.  This  is  the  testino;  of  con- 
science  by  its  analysis,  spoken  of  in  §  80.  7,  the  dis- 
tinction of  what  it  appears  now  from  what  it  in  truth 
is.  At  the  same  time,  whether  so  tested  or  not,  it  is 
conscience  that  must  be  obeyed  ;  the  sense  of  moral 
validity,  the  importance  of  duty,  is  that  which  is  to 
be  held  fast  and  deepened  ;  for  in  intensifying  this 
feeling  alone  lies  the  chance  of  bringing  out  its  ele- 
ments of  analysis  into  new  distinctness,  and  into  their 
true  proportions. 

2.  In  the  second  place,  the  law  imposed  by  this 
criterion  is  a  law,  perhaps  the  only  law,  of  Liberty. 
It  is  a  necessary  characteristic  of  liberty  that  the 
character,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  as  defined 
in  §  59,  should  be  free  from  the  domination  of  in- 
fluences coming  from  nervous  organs  which  are  not 


54  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

^c*^^P      ^^^  own,  as  explained  in  §  57.  13;  that  it  sliould  act 

-—         from  principles  springing  from  itself  and  from  its  own 

On  the       oro^an.     The  criterion,  therefore,  imposino;  a  law  of 

application  of       ,  "-'  '  ... 

this  logic,  liberty  must  be  at  least  a  reflective  emotion.  Direct 
emotions  are  coloured  too  much  by  their  representa- 
tions, the  representations  of  visible  and  tangible  ob- 
jects and  events,  to  allow  them  to  rule  the  character 
with  freedom.  This  follows  from  §  64.  i,  where  it 
was  shown  that  the  character  can  only  be  determined 
by  analysis  of  the  reflective  emotions.  So  far  any 
reflective  emotion  might  furnish  a  law  of  liberty ;  the 
preeminence  of  the  emotion  of  moral  sense  depends 
on  its  universality  and  harmonising  power,  Avhich 
no  other  emotion  possesses.  It  is  avvlsayjog  ryjg  ri- 
'kuorrirog,  the  bond  of  perfectness.  It  imparts  the 
gift  of  liberty,  not  only  from  external,  but  also  from 
the  conflict  of  internal  laws.  The  proof  of  these  pro- 
positions, as  matters  of  fact,  depends  on  the  analysis 
in  Book  i. 

3.  Again,  since  the  criterion  is  a  reflective  emo- 
tion, it  is  a  criterion  of  the  agent,  or  person  acting, 
and  of  his  character,  as  well  as  of  the  act  done.  If 
we  had  not  a  reflective  emotion  as  criterion,  we  could 
have  no  criterion  of  characters  or  of  persons.  But 
this  is  what  is  required  of  ethic,  that  it  should  point 
out  some  direct  means  of  judging  persons  and  cha- 
racters. Now  the  character  of  acts,  apart  from  agents, 
is  to  be  mere  events;  acts  are  events  coloured  by 
emotions.  In  knowing  the  emotions  we  have  there- 
fore necessarily  some  knowledge  of  the  acts ;  but  in 
knowing  the  acts,  apart  from  the  emotions,  we  have 
no  knowledo;e  of  them  but  as  events.  To  know  the 
acts  as  events,  together  with  their  consequences,  that 
is,  with  the  feelings  which  they  cause  in  others,  or 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  55 

in  oneself,  as  distinguished  from  the  feelino;s  of  which      book  ir. 
they  consist  or  by  which  they  are  caused  in  oneself,         — " 
is  still  to  know  them  only  as  events,  just  as  we  might       on  tiie 
know  an  earthquake,  for  instance,  and  the  feelings    "^djiTiogic." 
which  it  caused.     It  is  the  feelings  in  which  the  act 
consists,  not  those  which  it  causes,  that  are  the  ana- 
lysis of  the  act;  and  to  have  a  criterion  for  judging 
these  is  to  have  a  criterion  both  of  the  act  and  of 
the  agent.     To  examine  and  judge  of  acts  solely  by 
their  consequences,  even  if  emotions  are  among  such 
consequences,  is  to  examine  and  judge  them  apart 
from  character  ;   is  not  strictly  speaking  an  ethical 
enquiry  at  all ;  unless  we  have  also  some  criterion  of 
the  emotions,  as  such,  which  are  their  consequences, 
and  apply  the  two  criterions  in  the   same  enquiry. 
But  those  who  decline  to  apply  a  criterion  of  emo- 
tions and  of  characters,  when  they  appear  in  or  as 
the  acts  themselves,  will  probably  be  led  to  decline 
it  also  wdien  they  appear  as  the  consequences  of  acts ; 
at  least,  if  they  had  such  a  criterion  to  apply,  why 
should  they  not  apply  it  at  first  as  well  as  at  last? 
Probably  therefore  the  recourse  to  consequences  in 
judging  of  acts,  the  finding  the  criteria  of  acts  in 
their  consequences  alone,  is  an  indication  that  those 
who  so  reason  have  no  sufiicient  criteria  of  emotions 
and  characters  to  apply.     We  may  therefore  expect 
to  find  them  judging  actions,  not  by  the  reflective, 
but  by  the  direct  emotions  which  are  their  conse- 
quences, as  being  the  kind  of  feelings  most  commonly 
understood   among  men,  and  the   relative  values  of 
which  are  most  widely  agreed  upon.      The  judging 
by  consequences  will  accordingly  tend  to  make  direct 
emotions  the  principal  criteria,  and  their  pleasures 
or  satisfactions  the  principal  ends  of  conduct.     But 


56 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


^^°^.F-      the  problem  of  ethic  is  not  solved  without  a  criterion 

Ch.  II.  '^ 

- —         of  the  reflective   emotions,  of  the   character  of  the 
On  the       ao-ent  as  well  as  of  his  transeunt  or  overt  acts.     If 

application  of        "-^ 

tiiis  logic,  we  are  to  have  an  ethic  at  all,  this  is  the  point  which 
sooner  or  later  must  be  settled,  What  is  the  criterion 
of  character. 

4.  In  all  voluntary  redintegrations,  whether  im- 
manent or  transeunt,  the  emotion  of  moral  sense  is 
that  which  justifies  or  condemns  them,  whether  it  is 
included  in  them  at  the  time  or  not.  It  is  by  no 
means  requisite  that  it  should  be  included  in  the 
redintegrations  which  it  is  to  justify;  the  attempt  to 
have  it  so  included  would  involve  perpetual  anxiety 
about  the  criterion,  about  conduct  in  minutias  being 
conformable  to  it,  which  is  not  a  course  or  habit  of 
mind  which  the  criterion  itself  would  probably  re- 
commend to  us.  Some  men  may  be  too  careless, 
others  too  anxious.  A  certain  freedom  and  boldness 
in  action,  a  certain  confidence  in  the  goodness  of  our 
principles,  seems  to  be  a  necessary  characteristic  of 
principles  that  are  really  good,  as  well  as  being  the 
charm  and  ornament  of  a  noble  life.  This  only  is 
requisite,  that,  when  actions  or  redintegrations  are 
recalled  for  the  purpose  of  judgment  being  passed 
upon  them,  they  should  coalesce  with  this  emotion, 
which  is  the  criterion.  This  combination  is  their 
justification.  Now  if  the  necessity,  first  of  some 
criterion,  then  of  some  reflective  emotion  being  the 
criterion,  is  admitted,  it  will  also,  I  think,  be  allowed 
that  the  moral  sense  is  one  which  certainly  is  the 
criterion  of  all  emotions  below  it,  that  is,  of  all  those 
analysed  before  it  in  Chapter  ii.  Book  i. ;  but  not  so 
readily  perhaps  that  it  is  the  criterion  of  those  above 
it,  the  imaginative  emotions,  or  of  any  emotions  car- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC, 


57 


ried  up  into  imagination.     The  moral  sense,  it  will 
be  said,  is  the  mere  rudiments  of  morality;  it  is  in- 
adequate to  test  the  duties  of  religion,  or,  by  others 
again  it  will  be  said,  the  ideally  perfect  life  of  a  poet. 
But  in  the  first  place  it  must  be  considered,  that  two 
things  are  requisite  for  a  criterion ;  it  must  be  uni- 
versally recognised,  and  it  must  embrace,  as  a  prin- 
ciple, all  the  possible  developments  of  other  principles 
as  well  as  its  own.     Both  characters  are  wanting-  to 
religion  and  to  poetical  emotion.     The  first  is  want- 
ing to  religion,  because  religion  is   an  imaginative 
development  of  the  moral  sense  which  fashions  itself 
differently  in  diiferent  individuals  and  different  sects, 
and  in  different  times  and  places;  no  religion,  except 
so  far  as  it  contains  the  moral  sense  and  in  this  ele- 
ment of  it  alone,  is  recognised  as  a  valid  moral  duty 
by  men  beyond  the  small  pale  of  its  votaries.      To 
endeavour  to  enforce  it  upon  others  is  not  to  enforce 
a  law  of  liberty,   but  to  tyrannise.      For  the   same 
reason  no  religion  embraces  as  a  principle  the  deve- 
lopments of  other  principles  as  well  as  its  own;  it 
is   only  the  moral   sense,  contained   in   the  religion, 
that  does  so.     The  same  reasons  apply  with  greater 
force  to  the  emotion  or  emotions  of  poetical  imagi- 
nation; with  greater  force,  because  they  do  not  ne- 
cessarily contain  the  moral  sense  at  all.     If  then  the 
moral  sense  were  not  the  universal  criterion,  there 
Avould  be  no  such  criterion  possible.      But  the  ob- 
jection above  stated  is,  not  that  religion  or  poetry 
supply  a  criterion,  but  that  the  moral  sense  does  not 
supply  a  criterion  for  religion  and  poetry.     It  cannot 
test,  it  is  said,  what  is  greater  and  better  than  itself. 
Again  then  I  ask.  What  is   meant   by  a  criterion? 
Universality  of  recognition ;  universality  of  applica- 


ROOK  II. 

Ci(.  II. 


§82. 

On  the 

a])plication  of 

this  logic. 


58  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      biUtv.     There  is  no  emotion  not  imao^inative  which 
Ch.  II.  -^  ,  '^ 

—         the   moral    sense   does  not  dominate  as  better  and 

§82.  . 

On  the  wider  than  it ;  of  all  these  it  is  a  positive  test ;  of 
this  logic,  these  when  carried  over  into  imagination,  that  is,  of 
poetical  imagination,  it  is  a  negative  test,  a  limiting 
condition  of  their  imaginative  development ;  a  con- 
dition from  which  they  cannot  escape,  not  in  their 
special  character  of  imaginations,  but  in  their  general 
character  of  actions;  it  does  not  direct  their  imagi- 
nation to  certain  further  ends,  but  limits  it  to  certain 
hither  ends;  it  does  not  point  to  imaginative  perfec- 
tion, but  restricts  imagination  to  be  perfect  as  well  as 
imaginative.  The  same  is  true  of  its  action  upon  the 
imagination  founded  on  itself,  that  is,  on  the  moral 
sense;  it  restricts  and  limits  this  imagination,  reli- 
gion, to  the  observance  of  its  own  principle,  the  moral 
sense,  whatever  else  it  may  add  to  or  combine  with 
it,  or  in  whatever  dress  it  may  clothe  it.  Command- 
ing positively  all  below,  the  moral  sense  commands 
negatively  all  above  itself,  and  makes  itself  the  sine 
qua  non  of  right  action.  It  is  the  narrow  neck  of  the 
hourglass,  through  which  all  the  sands  must  pass, 
from  whatever  part  of  the  heap  above  they  come,  and 
upon  whatever  part  of  the  heap  below  they  fall.  Its 
universal  recognition  makes  it  valid  for  all  men;  its 
smallness  of  content,  love  and  justice  alone,  makes 
it  valid  for  all  feelings;  it  is  no  restriction  upon  the 
liberty  either  of  men  or  of  their  actions ;  it  can  found 
no  tyranny  over  men,  nor  any  over  their  tendencies 
of  character.  All  its  laws  are  recognised  by  the  con- 
science of  every  individual. 

5.  The  preceding  paragraph  leads  naturally  to 
the  consideration  of  the  Sanctions  of  the  moral  law ; 
by  what  feelings  and  by  whom  it  is  enforced       It 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  59 

has  been  said  that  the  moral  sense,  being  the   cri-      book  n. 
terion  of  right,  is  the  basis  or  most  general  law  of        —' 
right.     But  all  law  is  command,  and  all  command,        on  t'he 
being  possibly  disobeyed,  has  two  alternative  results,    ^ThiTiogL"^ 
the  effect  of  obedience  and  the  effect  of  disobedience. 
When  the  effects  of  disobedience  are  painful,  they 
are  called  sanctions  of  the  command ;  and  sometimes 
the  effects  of  obedience,  when  they  are  pleasurcable, 
are  called  sanctions  also:   the  latter  sanction  beinsr 
Reward,  the  former  Punishment.     Without  entering 
on  the  question  whether,  in  the  philosophy  of  law, 
the  wider  or  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term  sanc- 
tion is  most  correct,  I  will  here,  in  the  logic  of  ethic, 
take  it  in  the  wider  sense,  for  the  sake  of  leaving  no 
corner  of  the  ground  untrodden. 

6.  It  is  necessary  to  a  sanction  that  it  should  be 
known  to  be  connected  with  the  law,  as  the  conse- 
quence of  obedience  or  disobedience ;  otherwise  it  is 
not  the  sanction  of  that  law,  but  merely  a  pleasure- 
able  or  painful  occurrence  unconnected  Avith  it.  The 
only  sanction  of  the  moral  sense,  or  moral  law,  con- 
sists in  the  pleasure  of  a  good  conscience,  as  the  re- 
ward of  obedience,  and  in  the  pain  of  remorse,  as 
the  punishment  of  disobedience.  But  as  many  kinds 
and  special  combinations  of  acts  falling  under  the 
general  command  of  the  moral  law,  as  many  com- 
plex feelings  and  acts  which  are  instances  of  obedi- 
ence or  disobedience  to  it,  so  many  kinds  of  feelings 
are  there  included  under  the  g-eneral  heads  of  its 
sanction.  There  is  one  kind  or  modification  of  re- 
morse for  envy,  another  for  ingratitude;  one  modi- 
fication of  good  conscience  for  benevolence,  another 
for  veracity.  The  sanctions  are  as  various  as  the 
acts  sanctioned.     So  also  in  regret;  regret  is  sorrow 


60 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  II. 


for  things  not  being  or  having  been  so  well  as  they 
r^        might  have  been,  so  far  as  this  result  is  not  due  to 
On  the       infrino-ement  of  the  moral  law.     There  are  as  many 

application  ot  o  j 

this  logic,  kinds  of  reo-ret  as  there  are  kinds  of  failino-s  in  well 
being.  There  is  no  painful  or  pleasureable  feeling 
which  is  a  sanction  of  the  moral  law,  except  it  is  a 
modification  of  good  conscience  or  of  remorse  ;  for 
only  as  good  conscience  or  as  remorse  can  it  be 
known  to  be  connected,  as  a  consequence,  with  the 
violation  or  fulfilment  of  the  moral  law.  Without 
either  of  these  two  feelings,  the  supposed  sanction 
might  be  the  object  of  the  most  poignant  sorrow  or 
regret,  but  it  could  not  be  a  sanction  of  the  moral  law. 
7.  There  are  two  branches  of  the  sanctions  of  the 
moral  law  so  important,  and  at  the  same  time  at- 
tended with  such  ambiguities,  as  to  recjuire  special 
notice.  The  sanctions  are  two,  self  -  approval  and 
self-disapproval.  It  is  clear  that  we  do  not  travel 
out  of  our  o^vn  self- consciousness  in  submitting  to 
or  applying  them.  Yet  the  most  powerful  motives 
for  obeying  the  moral  law  are  drawn  from  the  ap- 
proval or  disapproval  of  other  persons,  either  of  the 
public  at  large,  in  the  shape  of  public  opinion,  or  of 
those  more  immediately  and  constantly  surrounding 
us.  This  opinion,  even  when  attended  with  no  ma- 
terial consequences,  as  they  are  called,  that  is,  when 
confined  to  the  most  tacit  expression  of  opinion  pos- 
sible, and  to  acts  of  omission,  has  a  most  powerful 
operation  on  character,  and  on  the  immanent  as  well 
as  the  transeunt  acts  which  form  it.  AVe  know  or 
we  divine  what  others  think  and  feel  about  us;  and 
this  gives  us  the  acutest  pleasure  or  pain.  Yet  it  is 
no  less  true  that  we  are  ourselves  the  agents  who 
apply  these  sanctions.     It  is  with  these  sanctions  just 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  61 

as  it  is  with  all  reflective  emotions ;  part  of  their  ob-  ]?ook  u. 
ject  or  framework  is  the  representation  of  the  feel-  ^— '' 
ings  of  other  persons  towards  the  Subject  of  the  on  tTie 
emotions.  (See  this  exhibited  in  §  23.)  So  it  is  '''thiriogr^ 
also  with  the  emotions  of  remorse  and  good  con- 
science, which  are  the  sanctions  of  the  moral  law. 
There  are  then  two  main  branches  of  these  sanc- 
tions ;  the  first  when  we  simply  feel  them  ourselves, 
the  second  when  we  both  feel  them  ourselves  and 
represent  the  approval  or  disapproval  of  others  to- 
wards us,  founded  on  the  same  perception  of  facts. 
To  us  this  second  element,  the  approval  or  disap- 
proval felt  towards  us  by  others,  is  a  circumstance 
which  is  a  natural  consequence  of  our  actions,  and  so 
far  independent  of  our  remorse  or  good  conscience ; 
to  make  us  feel  it  depends  on  other  persons,  and  to 
us  it  is,  on  that  account,  like  any  other  natural  con- 
sequence of  our  actions,  and  no  more ;  so  far  it  is  not 
a  sanction  of  the  moral  law.  But  inasmuch  as  we 
represent  this  approval  or  disapproval  as  founded  on 
the  same  knowledge,  of  our  o^vn  obeying  or  disobey- 
ing the  moral  law,  as  we  have  ourselves,  and  only  so 
far  as  we  so  represent  it,  it  becomes  a  part  of  our 
own  approval  or  disapproval  of  ourselves,  and  thus 
a  part  of  the  moral  sanction. 

8.  This  explains,  I  think,  what  is  often  noted  as 
a  curious  circumstance,  and  often  considered  as  a 
proof  of  the  depravity  or  deceitfulness  of  the  human 
heart,  namely,  that  we  tliink  lightly  of  our  own 
crimes  provided  they  are  undiscovered,  but  feel  their 
enormity  first  when  they  are  brought  to  light,  or 
are  in  danger  of  being  so.  "  Peccato  celato  e  mezzo 
perdonato,"  says  an  old  Italian  proverb.  The  truth 
is,  not,  as  often  insinuated  when  the  above  remark 


62 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  II. 


§82. 

On  the 

application  of 

this  logic. 


is  made,  that  man  thinks  hghtly  of  moral  evil,  dread- 
ing like  a  coward  only  the  punishment  of  it,  but  that 
the  discovery  of  guilt,  by  adding  the  representation 
of  other  persons'  condemnation  to  his  own  remorse, 
intensifies  the  remorse  itself,  enforces  it  upon  the 
mind  at  every  turn,  and  permits  no  escape  from  its 
infliction.  This  analysis  also,  I  think,  explains  the 
feeling,  that  when  a  morally  guilty  person  has  been 
long  suffering  from  the  general  condemnation  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  it  is  just  and  right  at  length  to  grant 
him  an  amnestv.  as  it  were  ;  while  his  own  moral 
condemnation  of  himself  must  last  as  long  as  his  own 
memory.  The  condemnation  of  third  parties  or  of 
public  opinion  is  a  punishment  which  cannot  be  mea- 
sured solely  and  directly  by  the  guilt  which  it  con- 
demns, since  it  dej)ends  upon  causes  in  third  parties, 
quite  distinct  from  that  guilt;  for  instance,  upon  their 
caprice,  their  malevolence  or  benevolence,  their  de- 
grees of  knowledge  and  experience  ;  hence  it  is  just, 
for  fear  of  over  severity,  that  the  expression  of  public 
condemnation  should  be  withdrawn  at  certain  lensfths 
of  time.  Here  also  is  the  explanation  of  the  different 
degrees  of  sensibility  to  public  opinion  in  different 
characters.  The  self-isolating  character  feels  it  the 
least,  the  affectionate  the  most  strongly.  According 
as  the  tendency  of  our  emotional  disposition  is  to- 
wards alliance,  sympathy,  and  union  with  others,  we 
are  more  and  more  exposed  to  the  influence  of  the 
feelmgs  which  we  represent  in  others  towards  us  ;  a 
fact  noticed  in  that  passionate  questioning  recorded 
in  the  Life  of  F.  W.  Robertson,  Vol.  i.  p.  264,  "I  do 
not  understand  why  the  tenderer  the  heart  is,  the 
more  it  is  exposed  to  being  torn,  and  rent,  and  tor- 
tured ;"  a  fact  which  extends,  be3^ond  the  mere  ques- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETIIIC.  03 

tion  of  sanctions,  to  all  cases  of  the  represented  feel-      book  n. 
inofs  of  others  as  frameworks  of  our  own  emotions,  —' 

9.  When  we  look  at  this  second  branch  of  the  (In  the 
sanctions  of  the  moral  law  from  the  side  of  the  pub-  ^^tMs logic,*' 
lie,  of  those  who  are  its  instruments  or  organs,  whose 
acts  either  of  omission  or  commission  suggest  the 
approval  and  disapproval  which  the  Subject  incor- 
porates with  his  own,  there  arises  a  very  important 
class  of  questions,  relating  first  to  the  right  which 
third  parties,  or  the  public,  have  of  allowing  to  be 
suggested  such  approval. or  disapproval,  and  secondly 
to  the  just  limits  of  such  a  right.  First  as  to  the 
right  itself.  I  think  it  may  be  shoAvn  that  the  right 
itself  cannot  be  disputed,  with  respect  to  any  action 
or  feeling  whatever,  as  object-matter  of  approval  or 
disapproval.  The  encroachments  of  the  authority 
of  third  parties  upon  individual  liberty,  dangerous 
as  they  are,  cannot  find  in  this  point  any  limitation 
to  their  influence.  The  thoughts  and  the  feelings  of 
third  parties  are  as  free  and  as  uncontrollal^le  as 
those  of  the  persons  whom  they  judge,  approve,  or 
condemn.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  object  what- 
ever can  be  subtracted  from  their  competence,  if  it 
is  de  facto  a  possible  object  of  their  knowledge;  their 
right  in  this  respect  can  have  no  limitation  but  their 
power.  If  however  the  public  have  a  right  and  a 
power  of  entertaining  feelings  and  thoughts  concern- 
ing all  objects,  they  can  hardly  be  denied  the  right 
of  expressing  them,  whether  by  acts  of  omission  or 
commission.  Efferent  nerves  are  so  closely  dependent 
on  afferent,  and  both  with  the  organs  of  represen- 
tation, that  it  is  impracticable,  at  the  very  least,  to 
draw  the  line  between  the  right  of  entertaining  and 
the  right  of  expressing  any  class  of  opinions,  taken 


G4 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  H. 


§  82- 

On  the 

application  of 

this  logic. 


as  a  whole,  though  there  may  be  occasions  on  which 
the  right  of  expressing  an  opinion  may  be  restricted ; 
to  debar  from  expression  is  to  forbid  the  opinion. 
No  class  of  acts  can  be  withdrawn  from  the  com- 
petence of  public  opinion  by  a  distinction  drawn  be- 
tween acts  themselves  ;  such  as,  for  instance,  would 
be  that  between  acts  solely  self-regarding  and  acts 
which  regard  other  persons  as  well,  drawn  by  Mr. 
Mill,  On  Liberty,  Ch.  iv.,  if  it  could  be  made  applic- 
able to  opinion  itself  as  well  as  to  overt  acts  which 
are  its  consequences. 

lo.  The  line  must  be  drawn  in  quite  a  different 
way.  True,  there  is  no  class  of  objects  or  acts  ex- 
cluded by  its  nature  from  the  competence  of  third 
parties  or  public  opinion,  so  that  they  should  be  de- 
barred either  from  entertaining  or  from  expressing 
opinion  and  feeling  upon  it.  But  their  opinion  and 
feeling,  and  its  expression  by  act,  fall,  like  those  of 
the  Subject,  under  the  same  universal  criterion,  the 
moral  sense ;  and  their  conformity  to  this  criterion  is 
subjected  to  the  criticism  of  others,  who  are  to  them 
third  parties.  The  opinions  and  feelings  of  third 
parties  about  other  persons  than  themselves  are  to 
be  judged  by  themselves,  and  by  other  persons,  by 
the  criterion  of  love  and  justice.  There  is  no  other 
criterion  which  they  will  or  need  accept.  And  the 
following  consideration  is  sufficient,  I  think,  to  show 
the  efficacy  Mdiich  this  criterion  if  honestly  applied 
would  have,  or  which,  in  other  words,  it  ought  from 
its  nature  to  have.  Men  are  always  popularly  judged 
by  their  motives,  real  or  supposed.  The  immense 
ignorance  in  which  third  parties  are  and  must  alwaj^s 
be,  even  in  the  very  clearest  cases,  of  the  history,  the 
experience,  and  the  strength  of  different  motives,  in 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETIIIC.  65 

another  person,  of  the  mechanism,  of  his  mind,  so  to      bookii. 
speak,  and  of  the  forces  at  work  within  it  and  upon         — " 
it,  must,  when  properly  pondered,  and  governed  by       On  the 

,  ,  1   •      1  f  ^        1  application  of 

the  moral  sense,  hmder  any  one  Irom  nasty,  severe,  this  logic. 
confident  judgments,  especially  when  unfavourable. 
If  this  is  not  taken  into  account,  the  person  judging, 
or  acting  as  if  he  had  judged,  is  himself  guilty  of  a 
clear  injustice,  and  renders  himself  liable  to  the  ad- 
verse judgment  both  of  his  victim  and  of  the  public. 
I  cannot  but  think  that  this  is  the  true  way  in  theory, 
and  therefore  also  in  practice,  though  apparently  it 
must  be  very  slow  in  operation,  to  obviate  the  press- 
ing danger  of  a  tyranny  of  public  opinion.  The  dan- 
ger comes  from  want  of  thought  in  the  public,  that 
is,  in  the  mass  of  men  ;  it  can  only  be  obviated  hy 
increasing  their  habit  of  thoughtfulness. 

1 1 .  Third  parties,  then,  both  may  in  right  and 
must  in  practice  entertain  feelings  and  thoughts  about 
the  acts  and  characters  of  other  persons,  without 
limitation  drawn  from  the  kind  of  those  characters 
and  acts.  The  limitation  to  which  these  feehngs  and 
thoughts  of  third  parties  are  subject  is  drawn  from 
the  criterion  of  ethic  itself,  and  is  applied  not  only 
by  their  own  conscience,  but  also  by  the  feelings  and 
thoughts  of  others  in  judging  their  judgments.  The 
same  universal  extent,  and  the  same  limitation,  apply 
also  to  the  expression  of  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of 
third  parties,  to  their  expression  by  acts  of  omission 
or  commission.  As  it  is  inevitable  that  opinions 
should  be  formed  and  entertained,  so  also  it  is  inevit- 
able that,  when  entertained,  they  should  be  expressed 
by  word,  by  look,  by  gesture,  by  deed,  or  by  the 
abstaining  from  the  like.  Such  acts  are  the  evidence 
of  the  opinions.     No  such  expression  is,  on  account 

VOL.  II.  F 


G6  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      of  its  nature  alone,  excluded  from  the  competence  of 

— '       third  parties ;  that  is,  there  is  no  class  of  such  acts 

On  the       which,  as  a  class,  is  not  within  the  right  of  third 

application  of  .  •         >        i  .1  •  r  ^T      '  •     •  nrv. 

this  logic,  parties  to  do  as  the  expression  oi  their  opinion.  Ine 
limitation  comes  as  before  from  the  criterion.  The 
question  is,  What  is  the  limitation  of  this  criterion  ? 

12.  In  the  first  place,  the  limitation  is  clearly  set 
by  the  criterion ;  the  act  must  be  conformable  to  the 
principle  of  the  moral  sense,  in  the  person  doing  it. 
I  shall  enter  into  no  further  detail  of  this  application 
than  to  point  out  the  one  most  general  distinction 
which  arises  in  it,  and  attaches  to  all  cases  of  its 
application.  It  is  a  distinction  of  the  kinds  of  in- 
fluence which  the  expression  of  opinion  has  upon  the 
person  whose  character  or  conduct  is  criticised.  It 
is  a  common  and  a  true  remark,  that  hardly  any  ex- 
pression of  opinion  is  without  some  "material"  result 
or  import,  beyond  the  feelings  which  it  excites  as  a 
mere  expression  of  opinion.  Thus,  for  instance,  if 
you  give  a  man  to  understand  that  you  think  him 
untrustworthy,  he  knows  not  only  that  he  has  in- 
curred your  disapproval,  but  that  he  will  lose,  if 
occasion  should  arise,  the  visible  and  tangible  advan- 
tages of  being  trusted  by  you  and  by  those  whom 
you  influence ;  if  you  express  kindly  feeling  towards 
any  one,  he  knows  that  he  may  reckon  on  your  good 
oflices  when  they  may  have  a  visible  and  tangible 
efl^ect.  So  also  on  a  larger  scale,  when  the  approval 
or  disapproval  of  the  public  is  expressed  towards,  or 
known  by,  any  individual,  as  in  the  loss  or  gain  of 
custom  or  appointments.  There  are  then  two  kinds 
of  influence  which  the  expression  of  opinion  exerts ; 
the  one  is  the  consequence  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
opinion  itself,  the  other  of  the  visible  and  tangible 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  67 

results  of  that  opinion.  Both  kinds  however  are  in-  book  n. 
fluences  on  the  representation ;  both  are  operative  as  — ' 
representations  in  the  mind  of  the  person  criticised,  o^n^he 
and  as  emotions  in  those  representations.  The  loss  '^^tbis'logic.^ 
or  gain  of  visible  and  tangible  advantages  is  repre- 
sented by  him,  and  felt  as  a  kind  of  grief  or  of  joy. 
This  makes  them  motives  influencing  his  conduct 
and  character.  The  two  kinds  of  influence  are  distin- 
guished by  the  two  kinds  or  classes  of  emotion,  the 
direct  and  the  reflective.  Here  is  the  source  or  root, 
in  human  nature,  of  the  well-known  difference  be- 
tween the  two  kinds  of  influence.  Direct  emotions, 
it  was  shown  in  §  23,  are  those  which  arise  in  repre- 
sentations of  sensations  alone ;  reflective  those  which 
add  to  these  the  representation  of  emotions  felt  by 
other  persons.  So  far  as  an  expression  of  opinion 
calls  up  the  former  kind  of  representations  and  emo- 
tions, it  acts  by  the  influence  of  visible  and  tangible, 
or  as  they  are  called  material,  advantages  or  disad- 
vantages; so  far  as  it  calls  up  the  latter  kind,  it  acts 
by  what  are  called  purely  moral  influences.  It  is  not 
here  the  place  to  determine  how  far  the  application 
of  either  kind  of  influence  is  justified  or  justifiable 
by  the  criterion  of  ethic.  If  at  all,  this  question  can 
be  settled  only  when  men  are  considered  as  forming 
societies,  and  their  mutual  action  and  reaction  upon 
each  other,  of  the  whole  on  its  parts,  and  of  the  parts 
on  the  whole,  are  brought  into  discussion.  So  much 
is  clear,  that  we  have  in  the  distinction  now  drawn 
the  ground  of  the  distinction,  in  political  logic,  be- 
tween the  two  kinds  of  influence  known  by  the  names 
of  the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers. 

§  83.  I.  One  point  remains  to  be  remarked  in  the 
application  of  this  system  of  logic ;  it  is  the  connec- 


68  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      tioii  between  its  criterion  and  the  promotion  of  hap- 
Ch.  II.  .  .  i  .  .  ^ 

—        piness,  or  the  practical  tendency  which  obedience  to 
Eeiation  of  the  the  Criterion  has  to  obtain  that  feature  of  the  End 

criterion  to  , 

happiness,  which  consists  in  Happiness,  which  Ave  may  assume 
to  be  its  general  characterisation.  It  is  true  that 
happiness  cannot  be  balanced  against  happiness,  any 
more  than  pleasure  against  pleasure ;  but,  since  plea- 
sure is  the  motive  of  all  actions  without  distinction, 
it  is  an  irresistible  conclusion  that  some  great  sum  of 
happiness  is  the  result  of  actions,  supposing  them  to 
be  rightly  governed ;  for,  if  actions  could  be  rightly 
governed  and  yet  lead  on  the  whole  to  misery,  there 
would  be  a  contradiction  in  practice  between  the 
motive  power  and  the  End  of  ethic  ;  a  contradiction 
which  would  not  only  discredit  the  logic  proposed, 
Avhich  goes  on  the  supposition  of  an  harmonious 
structure  and  function  in  the  world  of  life,  but  would 
exhibit  this  supposition  itself  as  erroneous.  Contra- 
diction would  be  thus  discovered  in  the  very  con- 
struction and  course  of  nature.  And  although  it  is 
true,  as  maintained  above,  that  we  cannot  determine 
the  right  course  of  action  by  knowing  the  nature  of 
the  greatest  happiness,  since  this  is  a  knowledge  we 
have  not;  yet,  knowing  the  nature  of  the  right  course 
of  action,  we  may  have  grounds,  more  or  less  pro- 
bable, for  supposing  that  it  tends  towards  the  greatest 
possible  happiness,  grounds  derived  from  observing 
the  results  of  such  a  course  of  action  in  particular 
cases,  where  follovring  it  has  led  to  happiness,  or 
neglecting  it  to  the  reverse. 

1.  The  following  passage  in  Dr.  Newman's  Ser- 
mons bearing  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,  Serm.  xvii. 
"  Sanctity  the  token  of  the  Christian  Empire,"  page 
276,  2nd  edit.,  was  pointed  out  to  me  by  my  friend. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


G9 


Principal  Shairp,  as  an  admirable  statement  of  one      book  h. 
of  the  cardinal  points  in  this  question :   "In  truth, 


S83. 


SO  has  it  been  ordered  by  Divine  Providence,  that  Relation  of  the 
in  the  Gospel  Kingdom  is  instanced  a  remarkable  happiness. 
law  of  Ethics,  which  is  well  known  to  all  who  have 
given  their  minds  to  the  subject.  All  virtue  and 
goodness  tend  to  make  men  powerful  in  this  world ; 
but  they  who  aim  at  the  power  have  not  the  virtue. 
Again :  virtue  is  its  own  reward,  and  brings  with  it 
the  truest  and  highest  pleasures ;  but  they  who  culti- 
vate it  for  the  pleasure-sake  are  selfish,  not  religious, 
and  Avill  never  gain  the  pleasure,  because  they  never 
can  have  the  virtue."  I  do  not  know  any  passage 
where  the  law  here  spoken  of  is  more  clearly  or 
precisely  stated.  It  is  certainly  one  which  is  very 
striking,  and  which  yet,  I  think,  must  be  acknow- 
ledged as  true.  It  would  be  well  perhaps  to  call  it, 
for  the  purposes  of  citation.  Dr.  Newman's  law,  from 
the  profound  writer  to  whom  we  owe  this  statement 
of  it.  The  causes  upon  which  this  law,  or  general 
phenomenon,  depends  seem  to  be  already  at  hand, 
in  the  arrangement  of  facts  proposed  in  the  present 
logic.  He  who  seeks  happiness,  eo  nomine,  misses 
it,  because,  not  knowing  what  happiness  is,  he  takes 
as  his  criterion  what  he  thinks  will  be  happiness, 
neglecting  the  criterion  which,  not  being  happiness, 
leads  to  it,  or  is  characterised  by  it  in  result.  He 
who  aims  at  duty  finds  happiness,  because  he  chooses 
the  right  criterion,  neglecting  that  which  may  be  a 
result  but  is  not  the  criterion  of  conduct. 

3.  But  these  grounds  of  admitting  and  explaining 
Dr.  Newman's  law  are  capable  of  further  generalisa- 
tion; they  may  be  applied  to  more  cases  than  that 
which  he  had  in  view  in  the  passage  quoted.     He 


70  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      who  SGcks  OP  applies  anything  but  the  right  criterion 

-^*        misses  the  particular  end  which  he   seeks,  and  the 

Relation  of  the  particular  satisfaction  contained  in  that  end.      Sup- 
criterion  to  .         1  -,  1   n       1  f       •      J '  -11 

happiness,  posiug  the  uiorai  sense,  denned  by  justice  and  love, 
to  be  the  true  criterion,  then  he  who  makes  the  Will 
of  God,  as  he  supposes  it,  the  criterion  of  his  con- 
duct, or,  in  other  words,  seeks  to  do  the  will  of  God 
and  not  simply  to  do  justice  and  love,  does  not  do 
the  will  of  God  as  it  truly  is,  but  somethmg  else 
which  he  puts  in  its  place.  The  Tvdll  of  God  for  him 
is  that  he  should  endeavour  to  act  solely  on  the  cri- 
terion, the  moral  sense.  The  result  of  that  action 
is  in  the  hand  of  God.  Bentham,  I  think,  it  was  who 
acutely  remarked,  that,  if  the  will  of  God  was  the 
criterion  of  right  and  Avrong,  we  should  still  need  a 
criterion  of  the  will  of  God.  The  same  remark  may 
be  made  on  the  greatest  happiness  principle,  that,  if 
the  greatest  happiness  is  the  criterion  of  right  and 
wrong,  we  shall  still  need  a  criterion  of  the  greatest 
happiness.  Both  ways  of  proceeding  are  erroneous 
on  the  same  ground;  they  both  substitute  a  gene- 
rality for  a  speciality,  a  second  for  a  first  intention, 
as  the  criterion  of  conduct;  both  are  erroneous  in  the 
same  way,  namely,  by  interpreting  that  generality, 
specialising  it  for  appHcation,  without  a  criterion  ; 
that  is,  by  an  immediate,  or  unreasoned,  assumption 
that  acts  from  time  to  time  in  question  are  in  the 
one  case  a  doing  of  the  will  of  God,  in  the  other  a 
procuring  of  the  greatest  happiness.  Call  the  End 
of  ethic  by  what  general  name  you  like.  Will  of  God, 
Greatest  Happiness,  or  Harmony  of  Functions,  in 
every  case  it  requires  interpreting  by  a  criterion 
distinct  from  itself,  before  it  can  be  rightly  applied 
to  conduct  in  a  single  instance. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 


71 


4.  Austin  in  his  Province  of  Jurisprudence  Dc-       bookh, 


Ch.  II. 


termined,  Chapter  ii.,  strives  to  connect  the  two 
theories  of  the  Will  of  God  and  Utility,  by  making  Relation  of  the 
the  latter  serve  as  the  criterion  of  the  former.  The  happiness. 
benevolence  of  God  is  the  ground  of  this  connection ; 
the  will  of  a  benevolent  creator  and  governor  of  the 
world  must  be,  it  is  said,  the  greatest  happiness  of 
his  sentient  creatures.  This  no  doubt  may  be  true, 
but  the  union  of  the  two  theories  does  not  supply 
the  defect  under  which  they  both  alike  labour.  This 
defect  is  the  want  of  a  sufficiently  precise  definition, 
and  therefore  of  a  sufficiently  precise  criterion.  Put- 
ting together  two  indefinites  does  not  supply  the 
want  of  definiteness,  unless  they  limit  each  other, 
each  excluding  what  the  other  admits.  But  in  the 
present  case  both  indefinites  cover  the  same  ground. 
If  two  disorganised  armies  join  their  forces,  we  wait  to 
see  whether  they  have  thereby  secured  a  new  organi- 
sation ;  if  not  they  will  only  be  weaker  than  before. 

5.  The  two  theories  of  Utility  and  the  Will  of 
God  fail  to  lead  to  their  own  proposed  ends  in  dif- 
ferent ways,  and  therefore  for  diff*erent  reasons.  The 
particular  actions  or  objects  which  are  assumed  to 
embody  the  Will  of  God,  in  the  second  theory,  fail 
of  being  the  Will  of  God  from  the  necessary  imper- 
fection of  the  knowledge  which  particular  persons 
anywhere  and  at  any  time  have  concerning  that  Will. 
Any  such  particular  action  or  object  is  as  little  likely 
to  be  the  Will  of  God  there  and  then  as,  we  are  told 
by  comparative  philologists,  a  Avord  in  the  language 
of  one  Indo-European  people  is  to  be  the  same  with 
one  precisely  similar  to  it  in  the  language  of  another 
people  of  the  same  family.  An  action  precisely  har- 
monising with  a  particular  person's  view  of  the  Will 


72  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  h,      of  God  iTiust  differ  from  what  the  true  Will  of  God 

— "       would  require,  were  it  perfectly  known  to  him.     To 

Relation  "of  the  act  ou  this  particular  view  is  to  assume  a  perfect 

criterion  to  .  •    i        i        -rvr-n        o  /-~\      ^  t-»         •    n  •     i 

happiness,  acquaintance  with  the  VViil  oi  God.  Jrartiaiiy  right 
such  an  action  may  be;  partially  right  it  must  be, 
so  far  as  the  moral  sense  is  included  in  its  deter- 
mination. It  is  this  alone  which  gives  it  vahdity ; 
and  the  greater  part  this  has  in  its  determination, 
the  more  nearly  will  it  approach  to  being  wholly 
right.  When  such  an  action  is  challenged  by  other 
persons,  and  conscience  is  pleaded  by  the  doer,  this 
plea  is  not  to  them  a  sufficient  justification,  and 
ought  not  to  be  so  to  the  doer,  since  he  should  learn 
to  distinguish  his  o"svn  particular  persuasion  of  what 
the  Will  of  God  consists  m  from  the  criterion  of  right 
itself.  The  plea  is  of  value  for  justifying  or  proving 
the  honesty  and  good  faith  of  the  doer ;  and  will  have 
de  facto  just  so  much  weight  with  others  as  their 
previous  knowledge  of  the  person  pleading  it  deter- 
mines them  to  attach  to  it. 

6.  But  now  the  question  arises,  whether  or  not  the 
theory  of  Utility  adds  to  this  cause  of  error,  which 
springs  from  imperfect  knowledge,  a  cause  which  con- 
sists in  the  deceptiveness  of  pleasure.  This  may  be 
exhibited  best  by  considering  the  two  branches  of 
its  aims  separately,  namely,  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  Subject  himself,  and  that  of  Mankind  or  of 
the  greatest  number.  In  aiming  at  the  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number,  error  in  judgment  must  arise 
from  the  same  source,  and  in  the  same  way,  as  in 
the  former  theory.  The  particular  act  or  object  at- 
tained can  seldom  if  ever  be  the  precise  act  or  object 
which  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  greatest  happiness 
of  mankind  would  have  dictated.    The  second  branch, 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  73 

relating  to  the  happiness  of  the  Subject  himself,  con-  bookii. 

tains  the  most  plainly  the  question  before  us.    A  man  -^' 

fixes  his  hopes  and  directs  his  efforts  to  some  object  Reiation^fthe 


criterion  to 


or  mode  of  action,  which  he  thinks  not  only  morally  bappmess. 
justifiable,  but  also  a  noble,  refined,  elevated  plea- 
sure; he  attains  the  object,  he  is  enabled  to  perform 
the  actions  embodying  it ;  there  is  no  failure  in  any 
part  of  his  "intention,"  in  Bentham's  sense  of  the 
term.  Yet  it  is  a  constant  complaint  of  moralists 
that  the  pleasure  enjoyed  is  a  feeble  reflex  of  the 
pleasure  anticipated,  that  we  seem  to  have  attained 
one  purpose  only  to  discover  its  hollowness,  and  be 
again  attracted  and  again  deluded  by  another.  The 
point  to  be  considered  is,  whether  and  how  far  this 
is  a  true  complaint;  whether  there  is,  in  any  con- 
siderable number  of  instances,  a  delusion  in  pleasure 
attained  and  enjoyed,  a  delusion  not  arising  from 
mistaking  the  character  of  the  "  intention,"  or  from 
its  imperfect  attainment,  or  from  circumstances  not 
foreseen  which  injure  its  operation,  but  attaching 
solely  to  the  emotional  character  of  the  act  done  or 
object  attained,  and  consisting  in  a  deceived  expec- 
tation of  its  pleasureable  character,  everything  else 
remaining  as  it  was  anticipated. 

7.  This  question  is  not  to  be  hastily  and  roughly 
answered  by  appeals  to  the  dicta  of  moralists,  such 
as  the  "  Surgit  amari  aliquid"  of  Lucretius,  or  Pope's 
"  Man  never  is  but  always  to  be  blest."  Indeed 
there  are  dicta  equally  forcible  on  the  other  side  of 
the  question ;  and  among  the  most  weighty  perhaps 
are  those  words  of  Horace, 

"  Ille  potens  sui 
Lsetusque  deget,  6ui  licet  in  diem 
Dixisse,  Vixi:" 


74  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.  words  wliich,  with  their  immediate  sequel,  contain 
— 1-*  the  expression  of  a  calm  satisfaction  with  pleasures 
Relation  of  the  cnjojcd,  a  Satisfaction  enduring  in  the  retrospect  of 
happiness,  them.  Aud  many  other  such  dicta  might  be  quoted. 
There  seem  then  to  be  two  classes  of  pleasures,  or 
at  least  two  classes  of  characters  ;  pleasures  which 
are  satisfactory  and  pleasures  which  are  deceptive  ; 
characters  which  tend  to  be  satisfied  and  characters 
Avhich  tend  to  be  dissatisfied  with  attained  enjoy- 
ment. If  this  is  so,  the  aim  at  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  individual  cannot  be  the  universal  rule 
of  conduct  for  all  men.  We  shall  need  a  criterion 
to  distinguish  for  what  pleasures  and  for  what  per- 
sons it  is  available.  But  the  recourse  to  testimony 
on  this  point  is  fruitless  ;  we  shall  get  no  farther 
than  to  the  fact  of  their  discrepancy.  If  a  decision 
is  to  be  looked  for  at  all,  it  must  be  from  a  recourse 
to  analysis,  to  grounds  which,  in  respect  to  this  point, 
are  a  priori. 

8.  Two  classes  of  pleasure  were  distinguished  in 
§  53.  4,  5,  9,  lo,  the  general  and  the  specific;  and 
pleasures  of  the  former  class  were  found  to  attend 
the  exercise  of  the  reactive  powers,  and  to  be  their 
exponents,  the  pleasures  of  cheerfulness  and  energy  ; 
while  the  specific  pleasures  were  attached  to  specific 
sensations  and  emotions,  and  were  the  exponents  of 
the  retentive  powers.  We  may  call  specific  plea- 
sures pleasures  of  indulgence,  and  general  pleasures 
pleasures  of  control  and  government.  This  distinc- 
tion was  observed  in  spontaneous  redintegration,  and 
found  to  be  carried  on  into  voluntary,  through  every 
domain  of  action.  These  two  classes  of  pleasures 
were  farther  compared  in  §  62.  i,  and  instances  of 
their  operation  in  character  given.     From  this  ana- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  75 

lysis  it  is  likely,  that  only  those  objects  of  pursuit  can  bookIi. 
give  a  pleasure  in  attainment  equal  to  their  pleasure  — 
in  anticipation,  which  contain  the  pleasures  of  con-  Relation  of  the 
trol,  or  combine  these  as  the  governing  element  with  happiness. 
pleasures  of  indulgence  ;  that  only  such  objects  of 
pursuit  can  give  a  pleasure  of  long  duration  at  the 
time,  or  one  which  will  also  give  pleasure  in  the 
retrospect.  We  thus  obtain. a  distinction  both  be- 
tween the  satisfactory  and  unsatisfactory  pleasures 
and  between  the  satisfied  and  unsatisfied  characters. 
We  narrow  the  class  of  pleasures  to  be  aimed  at,  and 
make  it  more  precise ;  they  must  be  pleasures  arising 
from  self-directing  activity.  This  distinction  is  by 
no  means  owing  to  the  greatest  happiness  principle, 
but  is  one  introduced  into  it.  Yet  even  this  does 
not  give  a  class  of  pleasures  sufficiently  precise  to 
serve  as  the  criterion  of  ethic.  We  know  only  that 
this  criterion  must  belong  to  the  class  now  marked 
out ;  and  that  the  criterion  here  affirmed  does  so 
more  certainly  and  more  universally  than  any  other 
emotion  will  be  clear  also,  I  think,  from  the  analysis 
of  the  preceding  Book,  particularly  from  §§  38.  72. 
I  am  not  however  now  concerned  to  prove  that  this 
is  the  criterion  of  ethic,  but  to  show  that  this  alone 
has  the  promise  of  producing  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  individual,  which  nothing  else  proposed  as  a 
criterion  can  claim. 

9.  Generally  speaking,  the  happiness  of  life  con- 
sists in  the  energy,  and  its  dependent  cheerfulness, 
being  fully  or  more  than  equal  to  the  tasks  imposed 
on  it,  or  objects  proposed  to  it,  in  a  far  greater  de- 
gree than  to  the  specifically  pleasureable  character 
of  the  acts  done  or  the  objects  enjoyed.  The  former 
is  the  essential,  the  latter  the  incidental,  condition 


76  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.  of  happiness.  Only  so  long  as  we  have  the  energy 
— —  *  can  we  enjoy  any  specific  pleasure;  without  it,  these 
Relation  of  the  plcasurcs  bccome  burthens.  It  may  be  strongly  sus- 
happiness.  pccted  therefore  that,  whenever  happiness  is  attained 
by  acting  on  the  principle  of  pursuing  happiness,  or 
on  that  of  doing  the  will  of  God,  as  it  is  no  doubt 
frequently  attained  in  the  highest  degree  by  both 
modes,  the  attainment  .of  it  is  due  to  the  self-control 
exercised,  to  the  energy  of  the  reactive  movements 
displayed,  and  the  power  thereby  stored  up  for  the 
future.  To  seek  for  happiness  eo  nomine,  that  is,  for 
specific  pleasures  and  enjoyments,  is  thus  the  surest 
way  to  miss  its  attainment,  since  it  is  to  make  us 
imagine  ourselves  dependent  on  circumstances,  to  ex- 
expose  us  to  frequent  disappointment,  as  well  as  to 
lessen  the  fund  of  self-reliant  energy,  which  is  the 
true  and  actual  source  of  perennial  enjoyment.  Who 
is  not  familiar  with  the  fact,  that  conditions  of  life, 
poverty,  hardship,  even  comparison  of  our  own  state 
with  that  of  others,  are  things  almost  indifi:erent 
to  happiness?  "Pleasure,"  says  Wordsworth,  "is 
spread  through  the  earth  In  stray  gifts  to  be  claimed 
by  whoever  shall  find."  The  greater  part  of  enjoy- 
ment is  that  which  comes  unlooked  for,  but  never 
without  finding  already,  or  calling  out  afresh,  within 
ourselves  a  burst  of  reactive  energy.  Were  it  not 
for  this  law,  the  emotions  of  comparison  would  pro- 
bably press  upon  us  with  a  far  greater  weight  than 
they  do.  As,  in  ascending  the  ladder  of  ambition, 
each  ne^v^  step  gained  is  soon  forgotten,  and  the  next 
end  in  view  is  sought  for  with  the  same  eagerness  as 
the  old  ones,  so,  in  descending  it,  that  is,  in  losing  old 
possessions  or  former  honours,  we  forget  our  losses 
and  think  ourselves  fortunate  in  the  gain  of  the  ever 


THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC.  77 

decreasino;  objects  of  desire,  the  attainment  of  what-  bookh. 

.  Cii.  n. 
ever  purpose  may  be  immediately  in  prospect.     We 


§83. 


accommodate  ourselves  to  our  circumstances,  be  they   Relation  of  the 

1j_i  11  I'-i  1  criterion  to 

wnat  they  may ;  and  the  near  horizon  is  always  the  happiness. 
boundary  within  which  our  happiness  lies.  This  in- 
terest in  the  immediate  action,  which  detracts  from 
the  pleasures  of  comparison  in  successful  ambition, 
is  also  an  alleviation  of  its  pains  in  failure  and  dis- 
tress. If  we  do  not  compare  ourselves  with  those 
whom  we  have  far  outstripped  in  the  race,  so  neither 
do  we  with  those  who  have  left  us  far  behind.  Were 
it  not  so,  the  wish  to  be  "  aut  Ca3sar  aut  nullus" 
would  become  a  torment,  and  no  one  would  be  con- 
tent with  his  position  in  life,  since  no  one  could  in 
every  respect  be  CaBsar. 

lo.  We  thus  come  back  ao;ain  to  Dr.  Newman's 
law,  which  was  the  point  from  which  we  started. 
Nothing  but  acting  on  a  true  criterion  can  lead  to 
happiness  ;  and  the  cause  in  nature  which  enables 
this  to  do  so  is  its  being  an  expression  of  the  reactive 
energies.  To  have  an  indefinite  criterion  is  probable 
failure,  to  have  specific  pleasures  for  a  criterion  is 
certain  failure.  The  latter  however  is  not  an  error 
into  which  moralists  are  likely  to  fall  in  theory.  The 
great  danger  to  theory  is  indefiniteness.  Indefinite- 
ness  attaches  to  the  Will  of  God,  to  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  indi\'idual,  to  that  of  the  greatest 
number,  that  is,  of  mankind  at  large,  or  of  all  sen- 
tient beings,  certainly  a  magnificent  conception.  It 
is  clear  however  that,  if  we  make  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  others  our  aim,  we  must  at  least  take  care  to 
aim  at  the  development  of  the  energies  of  those  we  are 
caring  for,  to  aim  at  this  in  the  first  place,  at  their 
material  advantages  in  the   second.      Here   too  we 


78  THE  LOGIC  OF  ETHIC. 

Book  II.      shall  need  another  and  more  precise  criterion,  a  cri- 

Ch.  II  . 

-1- '       terion  of  the  means  to  make  others  self-reliant,  and 

O     DO  ' 

EeiatioiTof  the  sccurc  to  them  the  habit  of  self-control ;   otherwise 
happiness,     wc  might  dcstroj  their  happiness  while  we  secured 
our  own,  and  ruin  the  client  to  benefit  the  patron. 

1 1 .  The  efficacy,  then,  of  obedience  to  conscience 
in  producing  happiness,  like  that  of  obedience  to  any 
other  criterion  which  may  be  adopted,  is  due  to  its 
being  the  expression  of  the  predominance  of  the  re- 
active over  the  retentive  powers.  It  is  a  case  sub- 
sumed under  a  general  law  of  the  production  of 
pleasure.  The  greatest  pleasure  results  from  the 
greatest  vigour  of  the  reactive  mental  powers ;  and 
that  kind  of  conduct  produces  the  most  pleasure  or 
greatest  happiness,  in  the  long  run,  which  the  most 
preserves  and  fosters  this  mental  energy.  This  is 
a  repetition,  in  another  shape,  of  that  phenomenon 
which  was  noticed  in  §  57.  7,  namely,  that  health  and 
strength  of  the  physical  organisation  is  accompanied 
with  pleasure,  weakness  and  disease  with  pain,  an 
ultimate  though  general  fact  in  physiology.  And 
this  law  it  is  which  supplies  the  connection  between 
physiology  and  ethic,  between  the  phenomena  of  the 
de  facto  constitution  and  working  of  the  organism 
and  the  practical  criterion  of  choice  which  becomes, 
in  application,  the  floral  Law. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


T/  ouv  6  vo/xog  ;  ruiv  ffaga/Saffswc  ^ag/f  T^odBTidri,     *     *     *    "ilars  6 
vofiog  Taidayuyhg  yi/xZv  lysvtro  *  *  . 


St.  Paul. 


§  84.  I .  The  Logic  of  Ethic  embraces  all  actions  whe-      book  it. 
ther  immanent  or  transeunt,  and  all  feelino;s  whether         -L—  ' 
sensations,  direct,  or  reflective,  emotions,  in  its  scope,     The^eiatiou 
for  there  are  none  of  these  which  are  not  modifiable      and  Law. 
by  volition  indirectly  if  not  directly.      Its   scope  is 
coextensive  with   consciousness  itself.     But  its  im- 
mediate domain  or  object-matter,  in  and  with  which 
it  works,  consists  in  voluntary  redintegration  only, 
embracing  in  this  the  guidance  both  of  direct  and  of 
reflective  emotions,  both  of  immanent  and  of  trans- 
eunt actions.     Similarly  and  for  the  same  reasons  the 
scope  of  the  Logic  of  Politic  is  the  same  mth  that 
of  the  logic  of  ethic.     But  its  immediate  domain  or 
object-matter   is  more   restricted,   consisting   in  vol- 
untary transeunt  actions  alone.      Immanent  actions 
fall  back  into  the  scope.     They  are  part  of  the  field 
of  objects  modified  or  to  be  modified  by  transeunt 
actions ;    transeunt  actions   are  both    objects  to  be 


80 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§84. 

The  relation 

of  Ethic 

and  Law. 


modified  and  the  means  of  effecting  the  modification. 
The  logic  of  pohtic  is  coextensive  with  the  science 
and  art  of  Law.  Both  deal  only  with  transeunt,  or, 
as  they  are  usually  called,  overt  acts  of  will.  A  law 
is  a  command  to  do  or  omit  an  overt  act,  directed 
to  a  volition,  and  enforced  by  a  sanction.  Hence  the 
sole  method  of  politic  or  law,  when  it  operates  upon 
immanent  acts,  emotions,  or  characters,  is  to  work  by 
means  of  transeunt  acts  which  it  commands  or  for- 
bids; its  operation  is  from  without  inwards;  while 
the  principal,  or  at  least  the  characteristic,  method 
of  ethic  is  to  work  from  within  outwards,  to  modify 
the  habitual  acts  by  first  modifying  the  habitual  emo- 
tions. Every  law  is  therefore  an  infringement  upon 
the  liberty  of  action  exercised  by  the  organs  of  pure 
representation,  which  are  the  organs  of  the  character. 
Without  the  law  prescribing  or  forbidding  an  overt 
act,  the  immanent  action  of  redintegration  might  have 
taken  a  different  course  with  respect  to  it. 

2.  It  is  not  here  said  that  laws  ouo;ht  not  to  in- 
fluence  character  and  its  immanent  acts  ;  they  not 
only  do  but  often  ought  to  influence  them.  But  it 
is  said  that  laws  do  not,  as  a  fact,  prescribe  or  forbid 
them.  Laws  require  by  their  definition,  that  the  acts 
prescribed  or  forbidden  should  be  overt  or  transeunt 
acts.  Otherwise  the  laws  belong  not  to  politic  but 
to  ethic ;  they  are  moral  laws  only.  The  tenth  com- 
mand of  the  Decalogue,  "  thou  shalt  not  covet,"  re- 
vealed to  St.  Paul,  as  we  may  gather  from  Rom.  vii.  7, 
that  the  Law  was  spiritual ;  in  other  words,  a  moral 
and  not  only  a  political  law.  The  term  "  moral  law," 
which  seems  to  add  something  to  the  definition  of 
law,  to  make  it  more  full  and  precise,  so  that  a  moral 
law  must  be  a  law  at  least  and  something  else  be- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  81 

sides,  does  not  in  reality  do  so.     That  is  to  say,  it  is      bookil 
not  political  law  which  is  thus  laid  at  the  basis   of 


§84. 


moral  law,  but  law  generally,  law  as  a  rule  of  conduct  The  relation 
indefinitely.  The  moral  law  is  then  a  rule  of  con-  ami  Law. 
duct,  felt  to  be  valid  by  the  agent,  prescribing  or 
forbidding  feelings  as  well  as  acts.  The  political  law 
is  still  narrower  in  extent  and  fuller  in  characteris- 
tics ;  it  is  a  rule  of  conduct  prescribing  or  forbidding 
overt  acts  only. 

3.  Conduct  towards  other  persons  as  well  as  to- 
wards oneself  is  prescribed  by  moral  as  well  as  by 
political  law;  the  domain  of  both  kinds  of  law  is  in 
this  respect  the  same;  but  only  transeunt  or  overt 
acts  are  prescribed  by  political  law;  immanent  acts 
as  well  as  transeunt  only  by  moral  law.  How  far,  or 
in  what  cases,  political  law  is  justified  in  commanding 
or  forbidding  transeunt  acts  towards  oneself,  or  acts 
which  are  chiefly  and  primarily  self-regarding,  is  a 
question  for  another  place.  Here  it  is  only  to  be  said, 
that  no  overt  acts  are  excluded  from  the  domain  of 
political  law  by  a  mere  consideration  of  its  nature 
or  scope,  just  as  it  was  shown  that  no  immanent  acts 
or  feelings  were  excluded  from  the  cognisance  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  in  §  82.  9  et  seqq. 

4.  All  law,  moral  as  well  as  political,  has  and 
enforces  some  sanction.  The  sanctions  of  the  moral 
law  consist  in  remorse  and  its  modifications  (§  82.  6, 
&c.).  The  sanctions  of  political  law  are  punishments, 
overt  acts  causing  pain  to  the  transgressor  of  a  poli- 
tical law,  in  consequence  of  his  transgression  of  it. 
Strictly  speaking,  rewards  for  obedience  are  as  much 
sanctions  of  political  law  as  punishments  ;  but  the 
immense  preponderance  of  punishments  in  actual  iLse, 
the  principle  of  both  being  the  same,  will  render  it 

VOL.  IL  G 


82 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IIL 


§84. 

The  relation 

of  Ethic 

and  Law. 


unobjectionable  to  speak  of  punishments  only  under 
that  term ;  especially  since  some  of  the  best  jurists 
hold  this  view  to  be  the  strictly  correct  one  (Austin's 
Province  of  Jurisprudence,  Lect.  i.  p.  8,  2nd  ed.). 
The  truth  is  that,  restrict  it  as  we  may  to  punish- 
ments, the  term  sanction  inevitably  embraces  rewards 
as  well.  The  hope  of  reward  may  be  a  feebler  mo- 
tive to  obedience,  so  feeble  as  to  be  properly  called 
persuasion  rather  than  enforcement;  but  the  differ- 
ence is  only  one  of  degree.  And  besides,  wherever 
there  is  fea.r  there  is  hope,  and  conversely;  so  that  a 
promised  reward  urges  by  the  fear  of  its  being  with- 
held, as  well  as  by  the  hope  of  its  being  given ;  and 
a  threatened  punishment  urges  by  the  hope  of  escap- 
ing it  as  well  as  by  the  fear  of  incurring  it.  Still  it 
remains  true,  that  by  far  the  greater  part,  both  in 
number  and  weight,  of  the  sanctions  of  law  consists 
of  punishments ;  so  that  we  shall  be  in  small  danger 
of  error  by  adopting  this  simplification  of  the  term. 

5.  The  difference  between  the  sanctions  of  ethic 
and  of  law  gives  rise  to  a  distinction  between  the 
duties  imposed  by  them,  the  acts  or  feelings  com- 
manded or  forbidden.  The  duties  imposed  by  law 
are  termed  duties  of  perfect,  those  imposed  in  ethic 
by  conscience  of  imperfect  obligation.  The  sanction 
of  moral  duties  flows  directly  from  the  conscience 
itself  in  remembering  its  act,  that  of  legal  duties 
flows  from  the  lawgiver  who  punishes  for  the  act. 
Here  the  act  is  separate  from  the  command,  and  the 
command  from  the  punishment ;  all  three  are  overt 
acts ;  the  obvious  and  overt  nature  of  the  punish- 
ment, which  completes  the  efiicacy  of  the  command, 
seems  to  be  the  reason  why  the  obligation  is  called 
perfect.     The  remorse  of  conscience  is  unseen  in  its 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  83 

operation,  and  to  the  pnblic  therefore  laicertain  in  Book  it. 
its  efficacy ;  hence  the  obligation  is  called  imperfect.  ^—  ' 
Yet  the  distinction  of  the  whole  series  of  acts  into     The\eiati<.n 

T  IT  ,  •  •       •        ,  of  Etbic 

commanding  power,  command,  and  sanction,  is  just  audLaw. 
as  clear  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  And  since 
obligation  is  a  term  which  has  in  ordinary  use  a  dis- 
tinctly moral  sense,  it  would  be  better  to  substitute 
for  it  the  term  enforcement,  and  to  speak  of  Duties 
of  perfect  and  imperfect  enforcement,  instead  of  ob- 
ligation. Some  classes  of  commands  imposing  overt 
acts,  which  are  usually  called  laws,  have  no  legal 
sanction.  Such  are  International  laws  and  Consti- 
tutional laws.  (Austin,  Work  cited.  Vol.  i.  pp.  225- 
235,  2nd  ed.)  The  sovereign  which  imposes  them 
being  divided,  and  the  command  thus  consisting  of 
an  agreement  either  express  or  tacit  between  the 
parties  concerned,  the  violation  of  the  command  by 
one  or  more  of  the  parties  prevents  the  sanction 
being  applied  by  the  same  parties  who  imposed  the 
command.  In  this  case  law  is  at  an  end,  and  the 
place  of  sanction  is  filled  by  war.  Moral  law  re- 
mains in  this  case  unassailed  ;  but  political  law  has 
vanished.  The  duties  of  international  and  consti- 
tutional law  are  therefore  duties  of  imperfect  enforce- 
ment, and  in  this  character  subject,  as  before,  to 
moral  law,  and  similar  to  moral  duties,  notwithstand- 
ing that  they  consist  of  overt  acts  commanded  or  for- 
bidden, and  notwithstanding  that  they  are  formed 
into  elaborate  systems,  and  administered  by  regular 
tribunals.  Every  political  law  has  the  moral  law 
for  its  basis  ;  a  law  which  endures  beyond  the  power 
of  overt  acts  or  events  to  overthrow  ;  a  law  which 
judges  at  its  tribunal  and  by  its  criterion  every  poli- 
tical law  which  can  be  imposed. 


84 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II.  6,  The  followiiio;  Consideration  ao;ain  shows  the 

Ch.  III.  .  ^  ^ 


§84. 


universahty  of  moral  law,  and  its  supremacy  over 
The'^reiation  political.  The  person  or  persons  imposing  the  com- 
and  Law.  mands  of  political  law  are  called  the  sovereign.  In 
England,  for  instance.  Parliament  consisting  of  the 
King  and  the  two  Houses  is  the  sovereign  ;  that  it 
is  so  depends  on  the  Constitution  ;  the  Constitution 
is  its  de  jure  basis,  and  the  actual  recognition  of  its 
power  is  its  de  facto  basis.  The  Constitution  may 
be  regarded  as  a  de  jure  sovereign  only  ;  but  this  is 
not  a  sovereign  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  The 
Parliament  is  de  facto  sovereign  over  the  Constitu- 
tion as  well  as  over  its  subjects  ;  but  this  is  not  per- 
fect sovereignty,  because  it  lacks  the  de  jure  element, 
which  there  is  nothing  to  give  it  except  the  moral 
law  in  the  hearts  of  the  whole  people.  Only  over 
its  subjects  is  it  full  sovereign,  de  facto  and  de  jure 
as  well.  It  is  essential  to  a  political  sovereign  that 
it  should  have  actual  power  of  enforcing  obedience 
to  its  commands  by  means  of  punishment.  The  laws 
are  laws  of  perfect  enforcement ;  hence  the  sovereign 
must  at  least  have  de  facto  supremacy.  But  the 
justification  of  the  laws,  of  that  supremacy  itself, 
flows  from  a  source  above  the  sovereign,  from  the 
moral  law. 

7.  In  political  law  the  sovereign  who  imposes  the 
commands  and  the  subjects  on  whom  they  are  im- 
posed are  distinct  persons.  The  acts  commanded 
being  overt  acts,  if  the  characters  of  sovereign  and 
subject  were  united  in  the  same  person  or  persons, 
the  sanction  would  be  inefficacious  ;  the  sovereign 
would  remit  the  punishment  when  it  became  dis- 
agreeable to  him,  that  is,  at  the  moment  when  its 
efficacy  was  required  ;  and  the  only  sanction  remain- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


85 


ing  would  be  that  of  the  moral  law.  In  political 
law,  therefore,  the  sovereign  and  the  subjects  are 
distinct.  But  since  every  individual  is  subject  ne- 
cessarily to  the  moral  law  in  all  his  acts,  whether 
immanent  or  transeunt,  the  sovereign  who  imposes 
political  laws  is  so;  and  in  this  way  also  the  political 
laws,  being  acts  of  the  sovereign,  are  subordinate  to 
moral.  The  same  is  true  of  the  obedience  rendered 
by  the  subjects ;  obedience  or  disobedience  is  an  act 
of  the  individual  subject,  and  in  this  character  de- 
pendent on  his  conscience  for  justification. 

8.  In  the  next  place  it  is  to  be  remarked,  that  in 
the  case  of  political  laws  there  is  no  single  person 
able  to  judge  them  in  their  moral  character  without 
appeal.  One  person  commands  and  another  obeys, 
each  responsible  morally  for  his  own  act;  but  there 
is  no  single  conscience  judging  the  act,  made  up  of 
command  and  obedience,  as  a  whole.  Yet  at  the 
same  time  every  political  law  has  elFects  upon  im- 
manent acts  and  feelings,  and  upon  reflective  emo- 
tions; and  the  lawgiver  is  therefore  morally  bound 
to  aim  at  the  results,  of  this  nature,  which  are  com- 
manded by  the  moral  law.  The  same  is  the  case 
with  laws  international  and  constitutional,  which  re- 
side in  the  breasts  of  men,  and  are  bound  by  the 
considerations  which  conscience  imposes.  All  law, 
which  is  not  itself  moral  law,  is  therefore  de  jure 
subordinate  to  it,  and  flows  from  it  so  far  as  its  de 
jure  character  is  concerned.  The  separation  which 
is  possible  between  these  two  elements  of  right  and 
fact  in  political  laws  is  the  ground  of  divided  alle- 
giance to  a  temporal  and  to  a  spiritual  sovereign,  a 
question  which  can  only  be  settled,  whenever  it  arises, 
by  the  conscience  of  the  individual. 


Book  IT. 
Ch.  III. 

§84. 

The  relation 

of  Ethic 

and  Law. 


86  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL  Q.  It  is  becaiise  law  has  ends  beyond  itself,  in 

Ch   III.  ' 

—         immanent  acts  and  feelings,  ends  belonging  solely  to 
The  relation     the  jurisdiction  of  conscience  and  to  the  province  of 

1*1  '  •  1  I'll 

and  Law.  ethic,  that  attcmjjts  to  judge  ethic  by  law,  or  by  a 
logic  derived  from  laAv,  are  liable  to  failure.  Be- 
tween the  ends  proper  to  law  itself  and  the  ultimate 
ends  of  ethic  there  lies  a  gulf,  a  region  of  phenomena 
for  which  law  supplies  no  guidance,  where  ethical 
analysis  alone  is  of  service.  The  ends  proper  to  law 
itself  require  tracing  across  this  region  to  their  ulti- 
mate end;  whereby  the  character  of  this  ultimate 
end  itself  becomes  more  definitely  perceived.  With- 
out this  guidance  by  ethical  analysis  the  ultimate 
end  is  caught  up  hastily  and  indicated  vaguely,  con- 
ceived as  the  greatest  happiness  for  instance;  and 
thus  the  application  of  law  logic  to  ethic  directly  is 
one  cause  of  utilitarianism.  Another  consequence  of 
the  same  cause  is  the  material  or  sensational  nature 
of  the  sanctions  attributed  to  the  moral  law.  If  the 
moral  law  has  sanctions,  it  is  said,  they  must  be 
efficacious ;  hence  the  adoption  by  legal  moralists 
of  the  conceptions  of  endless  reward  and  punishment 
after  death;  the  sanctions  gain  intensity  at  the  cost 
of  their  purely  moral  character.  Hence  too  comes 
the  notion  of  the  commands  and  judgments  of  God 
being  definite  words  and  phrases  pronounced  by  men 
and  written  in  books;  for  political  laws  must  be  clear 
and  precise,  it  was  said,  or  the  punishments  for  trans- 
gressing them  would  be  unjust ;  since,  then,  God's 
laws  and  sanctions  are  ex  hypothesi  just,  the  lan- 
guage in  which  they  are  conveyed  must  be  definite 
and  unmistakeable.  Lastly  the  moral  character  of 
the  moral  law  is  lessened  by  the  expectation  that  an 
actual,  universal,  and  de  facto,  obedience  is  essential 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


87 


to  its  nature.  Political  laws  were  not  cle  jure  bind- 
ing, unless  there  was  de  facto  power  to  enforce  them ; 
and  accordingly,  moral  laws  which  are  not  de  facto 
enforced  are,  by  a  false  analogy,  held  not  de  jure 
binding  either.  It  is  then  forgotten,  or  not  per- 
ceived, that  the  moral  law  is  a  plant  of  feeble  growth 
at  first,  havino-  its  roots  in  the  reflective  emotions: 
that  its  validity  depends  solely  on  what  it  is  by  its 
nature,  not  on  the  success  with  which  it  may  be  pro- 
pagated, or  on  the  extent  of  obedience  which  it  may 
command;  that  its  complete  triumph  may,  or  rather 
must,  be  in  the  far  distant  future,  when  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  shall  become  kinwloms  of  rio-hte- 
ousness  and  peace.  But  it  is  clear  that,  if  only  such 
laws  are  morally  good  as  actually  and  visibly  prevail 
in  the  world,  the  moral  law  must  lose  much  of  its 
morality,  the  conquered  cause  never  be  the  right 
one ;  the  gods  of  the  moment  always  right,  Cato  al- 
ways wrong. 

lo.  The  questions  touched  in  the  foregoing  para- 
graph lead  to  one  which  has  been  much  discussed, 
the  question  of  primacy  between  ethic  and  law  in 
historical  development.  History  is  the  realisation 
of  the  moral  law,  which  develops  as  every  other  ele- 
ment in  man's  nature  develops  in  the  changes  of 
times.  The  moral  law  known  to  man  ages  ago  is 
not  the  same  in  content  as  the  moral  law  known  to 
him  now;  nor  the  moral  law  known  to  him  now  as 
that  which  will  be  known  to  him  asres  hence.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  imagine  a  moral  law  always  the  same, 
always  equally  perfect  and  complete.  There  is  no 
evidence  for  such  a  thing.  It  would  be  absolute, 
transcendent,  impossible.  One  element  of  the  moral 
law  only  is  unchanging.    The  moral  law,  as  we  know 


Book  II. 
Ch,  IIL 


§84. 

I'he  relation 

of  Etliic 

and  Law. 


88 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IIL 

§84. 

The  relation 

of  Ethic 

and  Law. 


§85. 

The  ends  of 

Law. 


it  by  experience,  is  gradually  realised  by  history,  is 
strengthened  and  increased  in  clearness  and  fullness 
mth  every  step  in  the  development  of  man's  nature 
and  knowledo;e.  Its  realisation  includes  its  own 
growth  as  well  as  its  increasing  command  over  obe- 
dience. Now  a  change  in  law,  now  a  change  in 
morals;  now  a  moral  ideal  becoming  fixed  and  se- 
cured by  a  legal  provision,  now  a  legal  provision 
cultivating  the  growth  of  a  new  moral  ideal ;  as  far 
back  and  as  far  forwards  as  we  can  see,  each  pre- 
cedes the  other,  each  is  followed  by  the  other.  There 
is  no  question  of  precedence  in  order  of  time  alone, 
for  the  process  is  in  infinitum,  in  both  directions. 
It  is  the  nature  of  the  two  steps,  the  legal  and  the 
moral,  which  decides  the  question  of  the  primacy 
between  them.  If  the  primacy  means  in  point  of 
de  jure  supremacy,  it  is  clear  that  it  belongs  to  the 
moral  step,  at  every  stage  of  the  historical  process. 

§  85.  I.  Since  law  is  subordinate  to  ethic,  or,  in 
other  words,  since  both  those  who  command  and 
those  who  obey  are  bound  morally  to  regard,  in  the 
last  resort,  the  commands  of  the  moral  law,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  ultimate  ends  of  law  are  suspended 
upon  that  of  ethic,  deducible  from  it,  and  justifiable 
by  it.  The  logic  of  law  is  a  reproduction  of  that  of 
ethic,  but  applied  to  overt  acts  only.  Where  imma- 
nent acts  are  judged,  they  are  judged  directly  by  the 
logic  of  ethic  and  not  by  that  of  law.  Laws  stand 
to  moral  duties  in  the  same  relative  position  as  trans- 
eunt  to  immanent  acts ;  they  fix,  embody,  and  give 
them  permanence.  Laws  and  systems  of  laws,  which 
are  institutions,  codes,  recognised  customs  whether 
written  or  unwritten,  are  fixed  landmarks,  known 
to  all  men,  diflScult  to  alter  or  remove,  inasmuch  as. 


Law. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  89 

obtaining  all  the  force  of  habit,  they  offer  in  the       book  n. 
venerable  names  of  Law  and  Custom  a  battle  cry         -^—  ' 

S  85 

and  a  rallying  point  to  all  those  who  are  not  pre-  The  end's  of 
pared  to  give  up  habits  of  thought,  action,  and  feel- 
ing, or  are  unable  to  perceive  when  the  growth  of  a 
new  morality  demands  the  reformation  of  an  old  law. 
Hence  arises  the  alternation  spoken  of  in  the  preced- 
ing paragraph,  the  change  effected  in  law  by  mor- 
ality, the  progress  assured  to  morality  by  law.  The 
alternation  is  in  some  sort  a  conflict  between  the  two 
principles  of  law  and  morality.  Yet  throughout  the 
alternation  or  the  conflict,  and  at  every  step  of  it, 
the  appeal  always  lies  from  law  to  the  principles  and 
logic  of  ethic.  It  is  these  that  are  invoked  by  both 
parties  to  resist  or  to  justify  a  proposed  change.  The 
question  is,  what  are  the  proper  ends  of  law  as  de- 
termined by  the  logic  of  ethic. 

2.  Since  the  End  of  ethic  is  the  ideal  perfection 
of  justice  and  love,  but  laws  deal  only  with  overt 
acts,  the  End  of  law  must  be  to  command  such  overt 
acts  as  lead  toward  the  establishment  of  this  ideal,  to 
forbid  such  overt  acts  as  lead  away  from  or  prevent 
it.  But  justice  and  love  are  emotions,  immanent  acts, 
which  cannot  be  commanded  by  any  law;  nor  can 
the  immanent  acts  or  emotions  which  lead  toward 
their  establishment  be  commanded,  nor  their  oppo- 
sites  forbidden,  by  law.  So  far  as  the  End  can  be 
furthered  by  overt  acts,  law  has  a  positive  duty  to 
regulate  such  acts ;  so  far  as  it  can  be  furthered  by 
immanent  acts,  law  has  a  negative  duty  to  abstain 
from  regulation.  Of  these  two  branches,  exhausting 
the  whole  duty  of  law,  the  first  is  to  establish  justice, 
the  second  to  respect  liberty. 

3.  Justice  comprises  the  whole  duty  of  law  in  the 


90  THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC. 

Book  n.      fij-gt  braiich  for  this  reason,  that  iustice  alone  has  a 

Ch.  UL  ^  .      . 

— —  part  which  consists  in  overt  acts ;  and  it  is  only  the 
Tbe^eiuisof  overt  acts  which  embody  justice,  the  overt  acts  which 
embody  injustice,  which  can  be  commanded  or  for- 
bidden by  law.  The  kind  of  acts  which  are  here  in 
contemplation  will  be  evident  fi'om  the  instances  of 
justice  and  injustice  given  in  §§  32,  33.  They  are 
such  as  fall  under  the  heads  of  the  law  of  status,  of 
2:>roperty,  and  of  contract.  It  is  not  at  this  moment 
in  place  to  enter  upon  an  analysis  or  classification 
of  law  in  these  respects.  All  overt  acts  which  are 
thought  to  embody  justice  and  injustice  are  imme- 
diate objects  of  legal  regulation.  It  is  clear  that  the 
justice  and  injustice  of  one  state  of  society  consists 
in  very  different  acts  from  the  justice  and  injustice  of 
another  state.  Justice  between  persons  in  the  early 
days  of  E*ome,  for  instance,  consisted  in  very  differ- 
ent acts  from  justice  between  persons  in  the  Feudal 
Regime,  and  both  from  the  justice  of  the  present 
day.  It  is  the  duty  of  law  to  establish  and  enforce 
by  its  sanctions  the  justice  proper  to  the  state  of 
society  existing  at  the  time,  and  from  time  to  time. 
To  maintain  an  antiquated  justice  is  injustice.  This 
would  be  a  transgression  of  the  second  branch  of  the 
duty  of  law,  the  duty  of  respecting  liberty. 

4.  The  term  Liberty  is  here  employed  in  the 
sense  which  has  been  given  to  it  throughout,  the 
free  self-determination  of  the  mechanism  of  pure  and 
reflective  representation.  This  liberty  is  not  the  so- 
called  freedom  of  the  will ;  nor  yet  is  it  license,  or 
freedom  from  the  moral  law;  nor  yet  is  it  freedom 
from  restraint  generally.  Of  these  uses  of  the  term 
Liberty,  the  first  is  a  chimera ;  the  second  an  im- 
morality ;  the  third  an  impossibility.    Yet  this  third 


Law. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  91 

sense  is  the  one  which  is  currently  adopted  in  this      book  il 

Ch.  in. 
country.     It  involves  the  same  conception  as  the  first         -^  ' 

sense  does,  that  of  freedom  of  the  will;  the  concep-  The  ends  of 
tion  of  something  acting  by  itself,  arbitrarily,  without 
rule  or  order  of  nature,  an  ontological  entity ;  for  if 
not,  liberty  being  freedom  from  restraint  generally, 
perfect  liberty  would  be  perfect  annihilation;  the 
subject  of  the  freedom  must  therefore  be  supposed, 
by  these  reasoners,  to  exist  per  se  not  subject  to  law 
of  any  kind.  Of  course  I  am  well  aware  that  this 
consequence  would  be  rejected  and  denied  by  those 
who  insist  on  the  notion  of  liberty  being  freedom 
from  restraint;  but  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  re- 
jected logically  and  consistently.  Legal  moralists  as 
well  as  psychologists  are  ontologists  at  bottom ;  some 
ontological  ''person"  or  "self"  is  the  fundamental 
unanalysed  unit  with  which  they  start.  But  the 
sense  of  the  term  liberty  here  intended  is  the  liberty 
of  self-determination  in  reflective  redintegration,  as 
explained  in  §  57.  12-16;  the  free  play  of  the  motive 
powers  therein  comprised,  uninfluenced  by  feelings 
consisting  solely  of  direct  emotions,  or  of  frameworks 
composed  solely  of  sensations ;  uninfluenced  therefore 
by  the  pain  or  pleasure  inflicted  by  the  overt  acts 
which  are  sanctions  of  law. 

5.  Ethic,  then,  commands  law  to  do  two  things, 
to  leave  the  moral  being  of  every  individual  free  to 
be  governed  by  motives  arising  within  itself,  includ- 
ing the  security  of  this  freedom  from  the  encroach- 
ments of  others,  or  of  violence  which  is  illegal  law ; 
and  to  enforce  by  sanctions  the  overt  acts  of  justice 
as  conceived  by  the  political  society  of  the  time.  The 
first  duty  is  the  provision  for  Progress,  the  second 
for  Order;  the  first  the  provision  for  reformation  of 


92 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 

§85. 

The  ends  of 

Law. 


§86. 

The  criteria 

and  motives 

of  Law. 


the  law,  the  second  for  its  stabihty.  Much  has  been 
said  about  the  necessity  for  combining  the  two  fea- 
tures of  order  and  progress ;  in  general  terms  no- 
thing can  be  more  true;  but  such  generahties  require 
always  interpretation,  analysis,  reduction  to  their 
"first  intention."  So  reduced  their  names  are  these, 
justice  and  liberty. 

§  86.  1.  The  ends  of  law  having  been  pointed  out, 
the  next  question  concerns  ihe  criteria  for  knowing 
in  the  future  what  laws  are  adapted  to  secure  them, 
and  for  judging  past  laws  by  their  apparent  tendency 
to  these  results.  There  can  be  no  single  criterion  of 
law,  as  there  was  of  ethic,  because  there  is  not  one 
but  two  ends;  and  we  should  want  a  criterion  not 
only  for  each  separately,  but  also  for  their  combina- 
tion as  ends  of  a  single  law.  The  establishment  of 
legal  criteria  is  therefore  much  more  complicated  and 
difficult  than  of  the  ethical  one.  Again,  since  the 
criteria  are  to  be  applied  to  laws  commanding  and 
forbidding  overt  acts,  and  not  to  the  character  of  the 
lawgiver  or  sovereign,  a  knowledge  of  overt  acts,  in 
their  different  kinds  and  enormous  variety,  is  requi- 
site before  we  can  discover  in  them  features  which 
may  serve  as  criteria;  we  shall  require  to  know  what 
features  have  been  found  to  lead  to  improved  justice 
and  more  perfect  liberty;  in  other  words,  we  shall 
want  a  knowledge  of  history  generally,  and  of  the 
histories  of  particular  states.  Again,  since  the  sanc- 
tions are  motives  of  obedience,  a  knowledge  of  the 
operation  of  different  kinds  of  sanctions  is  requisite ; 
and  since  the  operation  of  laws  themselves  when 
obeyed,  of  institutions  when  established,  takes  place 
by  means  of  motives  acting  on  individuals,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  have,   on  this  account  too,  some  very 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


93 


considerable  knowledge  of  the  various  kinds  of  hu- 
man actions,  and  the  means  of  their  modification. 

1.  All  this  is   clearly  impossible  in  the  present 
work.      Such  an  historical  and  experimental  enquiry 
is  far  beyond  its  purview.    I  must  therefore  renounce 
the  attempt   to   establish   any  criteria   for  judging 
laws  favourably  or  unfavourably,  except  so  far  as 
the  Ends  already  pointed  out  are  criteria,  and  their 
character  plainly  and  directly  discernible  in  the  laws 
to  be  judged.     Even  this,  however,  affords  no  small 
guidance ;    a  light   on   the   horizon    may   direct   the 
belated  traveller,  though  it  does  not  show  him  the 
immediate  path.     More  than  this   could  not  be  at- 
tempted without  our  becoming  involved  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  particular  laws,  and  in  the  merits  of  par- 
ticular controversies;  without  our  transgressing  the 
limits  of  a  logic,  as  stated  generally  at  the   end  of 
Book  i.  in  §  75.     For  the  truth  is,  that  the  further 
construction  of  a  logic  of  politic,  in  this  direction, 
depends  upon  a  further   analysis   and   classification 
of  the  phenomena  of  society  than  has  hitherto  been 
given,  at  least  with  admitted  success. 

3.  When  however  we  turn  to  the  remaining  lo- 
gical head,  that  of  Motives,  we  find  ourselves  in  a 
different  position.  The  analysis  of  the  operation  of 
social  and  political  forces,  as  they  are  now  actually 
at  work,  or  have  been  actually  operative  in  past 
times,  apart  from  the  judgments  to  be  passed  on 
them,  as  conducive  or  not  conducive  to  the  ends  of 
law,  has  been  pushed  to  a  great  degree  of  perfection, 
by  works  which  would  fall  under  the  general  de- 
scription of  Philosophy  of  History.  All  pleasures 
and  pains,  of  whatever  kind,  are  motives  of  action 
in  individuals;  all  may  be  motives  in  masses  of  indi- 


BooK  n, 

Ch.  III. 

§80. 

The  criteria 

and  motives 

of  Law. 


94 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§86. 

The  criteria 

and  motives 

of  Law. 


vicluals.  But  the  question  is,  How  is  the  operation 
of  motives  affected  when  masses  act  upon  masses, 
individuals  upon  each  other  and  the  whole,  and  the 
Avhole  upon  the  individuals ;  What  constitutes  a 
mass  of  individuals,  what  binds  it  together  ;  What 
particular  kinds  of  motives,  of  pleasures  and  pains, 
are  found  de  facto  to  have  had  most  weight  when 
witnessed  in  society?  In  the  individual,  the  result- 
ing choice  proved  the  amount  of  one  pleasure  to  be 
greater  or  less  than  that  of  another,  and  the  greater 
pleasure  became  the  will  of  the  individual.  A  group 
of  men  often  act  as  if  they  had  a  single  will,  a  will 
to  gratify  a  single  desire;  what  then  is  the  compa- 
rative force  of  the  dilFerent  groups,  and  of  the  dif- 
ferent desires  which  seem  to  animate  them  ?  Of  such 
kind  are  the  questions  which  are  the  preliminary  to 
any  further  question  about  criteria.  The  de  facto 
forces  at  work  in  the  social  organism  must  be  known, 
before  a  criterion  can  be  discovered;  just  as,  in  the 
study  of  the  individual,  the  analysis  of  the  emotions 
and  their  redintegration  was  the  condition  of  point- 
ing out  the  criterion  of  ethic.  That  further  analysis 
and  classification  of  the  phenomena  of  society,  just 
spoken  of  as  a  pre-requisite  to  the  discovery  of  the 
criteria,  may  be  sketched  in  outline  at  least  under 
the  logical  head  of  the  de  facto  motive  forces  in 
society. 

4.  Thus  m  the  logic  of  poUtic  the  question  of 
motives,  and  the  analysis  of  organs  and  functions 
belonging  to  that  head  of  logic,  occupy  at  present 
the  most  prominent  position,  the  position  which  in 
the  logic  of  ethic  was  occupied  by  the  question  of 
criterion,  while  the  question  of  criterion  is  m  politic 
a  question  of  the  future,  reserved  for  a  more  com- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  95 

plete  state  of  knowledge.     The  analysis  correspond-       book  ii. 
ing  to  tlie  present  one  in  the  study  of  the  individual         — ^  " 
was  that  contained  in  Book  i.     Were  the  means  at     The  criteria 
hand  for  offering  one  equally  complete  of  society,  it       of  Law. 
would  not  be  attempted  for  the  first  time  in  the  logi- 
cal part  of  the  investigation.     In  other  words,  the 
logic  of  the  structure  and  functions  of  society  is  still 
only  in  its  tentative  stage,  because  the  phenomena 
have  not  been  yet  sufficiently  examined,  or  disco- 
vered in  their  true  relations.     Contrary  to  the  usual 
opinion  I  cannot  but  think,  that  the  knowledge  which 
we  have  of  the  structure  and  functions  of  the  indi- 
vidual consciousness  is  more  complete  and  accurate 
than  that  which  has  been  attained  of  the  correspond- 
ing structure  and  functions  of  society. 

5.  Yet  it  is  not  a  compendium  or  a  sketch  of  the 
philosophy  of  history,  so-called,  that  is  here  to  be 
offered.  It  is  an  attempt  to  construct  an  applied 
logic,  to  give  a  metaphysical  analysis,  of  the  social 
organism,  in  respect  of  its  de  facto  motive  forces  and 
of  the  organs  which  embody  and  apply  them,  of  the 
mechanism  of  society  both  statical  and  dynamical; 
an  attempt  which  could  not  have  been  made  without 
the  previous,  more  empirical,  examination  of  the 
same  phenomena  by  philosophic  historians,  especially 
by  Auguste  Comte,  perhaps  the  greatest  among  the 
illustrious  historians  of  that  country  the  genius  of 
which  is  pre-eminently  historical. 

§  87.    1.  Character  is  the  last  point  in  individual     The^nu'tivcs 
or  ethical  analysis,  the  first  in  poUtical  or  analysis      of  Society. 
of  the  state.     The  ultimate  units  in   character  are 
emotional  states  of  consciousness ;  the  ultimate  units 
of  a  mass  or  group  of  individuals  are  characters,  or 
individuals  defined  by  their  character.     The  de  facto 


96 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§87. 

The  motives 

of  Society. 


emjDirical  motives  of  individuals  are  the  different 
degrees  of  pleasure  contained  in  and  defined  by  dif- 
ferent emotions ;  the  de  facto  empirical  motives  of  a 
group  of  individuals  are  the  actions  of  the  individuals 
flowinof  from  their  character.  This  is  not  a  conclu- 
sion  from  the  analogy  which  a  group  or  body  politic 
bears  to  an  individual  person,  but  a  simple  fact  of 
observation ;  no  group  is  supposed  by  it  to  exist 
previously  to  the  action,  the  overt  action,  of  indi- 
viduals. These  actions,  which  display  the  tendencies 
of  character,  are  the  causes  of  the  formation  of  groups 
in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  next  of  the  determina- 
tion of  their  action  when  formed.  In  history,  indeed, 
we  can  never  reach  a  beginning;  groups  precede  ac- 
tions and  actions  groups,  alternately,  as  far  back  as 
we  can  see,  nor  can  we  imagine  men  existing  in  iso- 
lation from  each  other,  and  not  formed  into  groups. 
It  is  a  parallel  case  to  that  of  law  and  ethic,  in  §  84. 
I  o ;  and  here  also  it  is  not  an  historical  but  a  logical 
first  that  is  intended,  in  saying  that  actions  are  the 
causes  of  groups.  That  the  reverse  is  not  true  in 
logic  is  shown  by  this,  that,  when  groups  are  formed, 
it  is  not  the  group  but  the  actions  of  the  group  which 
modify  other  groups,  and  are  modified  by  their  action 
in  turn.  The  group  may  be  entirely  explained,  when 
its  nature  is  analysed,  by  the  actions  of  individuals ; 
but  the  actions  of  individuals  can  only  be  partially 
explained  by  their  belonging  to  such  and  such  a 
group. 

2.  The  actions  which  form  groups  are  actions 
displaying  similar  and  compatible  tendencies  of  cha- 
racter in  the  individuals  who  perform  them.  The 
pleasure  which  one  individual  takes  in  certain  actions 
is  increased  or  secured  by  similar  and  compatible  ac- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


97 


tlons  in  other  individuals.  These  individuals  are 
drawn  together  into  a  group  by  the  perception  of 
this  mutual  benefit.  It  makes  no  difference  in  the 
general  nature  of  the  case,  whether  the  interests  thus 
gratified,  the  benefits  thus  received,  are  received  and 
gratified  by  the  natural  or  birth  position  of  the  per- 
sons, or  in  consequence  of  a  late  discovery  on  their 
part;  the  persons  in  question  may  be  mother  and 
child,  or  they  may  be  two  hunters  agreeing  to  meet 
for  exchange  of  booty,  or  two  students  for  inter- 
chano;e  of  ideas :  the  essential  nature  of  the  actions 
Avhich  bind  these  persons  into  groups  remains  the 
same,  namely,  actions  satisfying  similar  and  com- 
patible tendencies  of  character.  These  groups,  the 
smallest  that  can  be  formed,  of  whatever  kind  they 
may  be,  have  individuals  defined  by  character  for 
their  units;  and  they  themselves  are  the  units  of 
larger,  more  complex,  and  more  organised  groups, 
which  are  nations  or  states.  The  organs  of  society 
are  such  units,  that  is  to  say,  are  groups  by  which  a 
society  performs  its  different  functions,  and  operates 
on  its  own  members  or  on  other  societies,  groups 
incorporated  into  the  society  itself.  All  the  organs 
of  society  are  such  groups,  but  it  is  not  every  group 
that  is  a  separate  organ  of  society.  The  organs  must 
be  defined  by  distinctness  of  function  as  well  as  by 
distinctness  of  group. 

3.  When  Auguste  Comte,  insisting  rightly  on  the 
necessity  of  regarding  as  unit  of  society  an  aggregate 
of  individuals,  interposed  as  it  were  between  the  in- 
dividuals and  the  society  as  a  whole,  proceeds  to  la}' 
it  down  that  the  family  is  the  unit  of  the  state,  he 
seems  to  me  to  take  too  narrow  a  basis,  and  to  erect 
upon  it  too  artificial  an  edifice.     Families,  it  is  true, 

VOL.  II.  H 


I'.ooK  n. 
ch.  m. 


§S7._ 

The  motives 

of  Society. 


98 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  XL 
Ch.  III. 

§87. 

The  motives 

of  Society. 


are  groups  strongly  coherent,  bound  together  by  na- 
tural not  artificial  interests;  but  they  are  not  the 
only  groups  which  are  spontaneously  formed  by  the 
action  of  individual  interests.  To  analyse  society 
sufficiently,  and  to  classify  its  phenomena  correctly, 
all  the  kinds  of  groups  which  the  play  of  individual 
character  produces,  into  which  it  throws  individuals 
together,  must  be  taken  into  account.  Otherwise 
the  society  as  a  whole  is  judged  of  by  too  limited 
a  standard,  its  freedom  and  variety  is  disregarded. 
It  would  perhaps  be  hopeless  to  expect  the  first  suc- 
cessful movement  towards  such  a  complete  analysis 
of  the  phenomena  of  society  from  a  simple  historical 
inspection  of  them.  The  first  really  available  hypo- 
thesis may  be  expected  to  arise  from  an  analysis  of 
individual  character,  since  it  is  in  this  that  the  motive 
causes  are  found  which  form  and  bind  groups  toge- 
ther, and  which  then  determine  their  action  on  each 
other  and  on  the  whole.  It  is  not  said  that  all  groups 
are  important  in  the  same  way,  or  in  equal  degrees, 
but  that  all  must  be  taken  into  account,  as  operative 
units  and  organs  of  society  as  a  whole,  whatever  may 
be  their  character  and  importance. 

4.  The  groups  formed  by  unity  of  interest  need 
not  be  locally  distinct  from  each  other,  nor  locally 
united  in  themselves.  Sometimes  a  common  local 
position  forms  a  group,  as  in  the  case  of  islands, 
fortified  towns,  or  towns  with  a  particular  trade. 
But  it  is  by  identity  of  interest  that  the  peculiarity 
of  local  position  operates  to  form  the  group.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  family  remains  an  united  group, 
notwithstanding  that  one  son  may  be  in  Australia, 
another  in  America.  It  is  not  always  or  necessarily 
so;  but  this  depends  upon  the  counteracting  interests 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


99 


of  other  groups ;  for  instance,  if  an  emigrant  son  or 
brother  marries  and  founds  a  family,  this  weakens 
his  connection  with  the  family  at  home  ;  if  he  finds 
himself  surrounded  by  enemies,  or  in  distress  and  un- 
able to  form  alliances  in  his  new  country,  this  binds 
him  more  closely  to  his  old  family.  Time  again  is 
in  a  certain  class  of  cases  indifferent  to  groups ;  that 
is,  the  members  of  them  may  be  scattered  over  long- 
periods  of  time,  as  others  are  over  large  tracts  of 
space.  The  members  of  different  trades  are  an  in- 
stance of  the  latter  kind  of  separation,  the  members 
of  different  scientific  pursuits  of  the  former.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  the  enormous  influence  of  improved 
means  of  communication  between  men  is  exerted,  of 
the  invention  of  printing,  for  instance,  of  the  Post, 
of  railways,  of  telegraphs.  Printing  has  no  direct  in- 
fluence on  intellectual  power  or  knowledge ;  it  brings 
minds  into  communication  with  minds  removed  in 
time  and  in  space,  modifying  their  knowledge  and 
feelings,  forming  groups  and  disforming  them,  a  sol- 
vent of  old  organisations,  a  constructor  of  new  and 
more  complex  ones;  it  makes  common  property  of 
knowledge  and  of  feelings  which  before  were  con- 
fined to  individuals,  and  spreads  the  knowledge  that 
it  is  common.  The  knowledge  is  increased  only  by 
being  combined  and  held  in  common;  it  is  so  much 
the  more  food  for  logic. 

5.  Again,  the  same  individual  belongs  to  several 
groups  ;  it  is  hardly  possible  that  he  should  belong 
to  one  only.  Each  prominent  trait  in  his  character 
brings  him  into  unity  of  interest  with  other  men 
similarly  formed  ;  and  as  member  of  one  group  he 
may  be  often  at  variance  with  himself  as  member  of 
another.     The  religious  and  the  domestic  interests  or 


Rook  H. 
Oil.  HI. 


§87. 

The  motives 

of  Society. 


100 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


The  motives 
of  Society. 


§88. 
The  sponta- 
neous organisa- 
tion of  Society. 


duties  are  often  in  conflict.  "  He  that  loveth  father 
or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me"  is 
recorded  as  a  saying  of  Christ.  So  patriotism  with 
family  affection,  as  in  the  story  of  Brutus.  Here  is 
not  only  a  conflict  of  motives  in  the  individual,  but 
a  conflict  of  laws,  of  allegiance  to  groups  of  men  as 
members  of  a  covenanted  society.  The  logic  now 
exhibited  is  sufficiently  large  to  take  in  all  stages 
of  society ;  it  applies  equally  to  the  earliest  conceiv- 
able formation  of  groups  and  to  the  most  complex 
stage  of  social  and  political  development.  The  only 
difference,  it  will  be  remarked  later  on,  is  one  which 
arises  within  this  logic  itself,  the  difference  between 
less  and  greater  degrees  of  self-consciousness,  less  and 
greater  consciousness  of  purpose  in  volition.  At  the 
same  time,  the  circumstance  which  is  selected  as  the 
motive  power  of  society  is  sufficiently  precise  ;  the 
unity  of  interest  in  groups,  the  interest  of  different 
kinds  of  actions  in  individuals.  All  the  phenomena 
can  be  embraced  in  the  scope,  all  can  be  referred  to 
the  central  principle,  of  the  logic  of  motives,  which 
it  now  remains  to  apply  definitively. 

§  88.  I.  Since  society  operates  in  many  ways,  ex- 
erts influence,  and  displays  character,  and  yet  there 
is  no  single  consciousness  to  which  these  actions  and 
feelings  can  be  referred,  but  only  an  aggregate  of 
conscious  persons,  the  first  question  in  regard  to  so- 
ciety's action  is.  By  what  organs  this  action  operates, 
or  what  mechanism  it  is  which  renders  it  possible. 
Thus  approaching  from  the  side  of  the  whole,  the 
same  question  is  put  as  when  we  approached  from 
the  side  of  the  individual  members.  There  we  found 
indi\"iduals  forming  themselves  into  groups  by  actions 
flowing  from  interests;  here  we  find  that  society  re- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  101 

quires  an  analysis  into  groups,  in  order  to  tlie  con-       book  n 


Ch.  III. 


ception  of  its  character  and  action.    But  these  groups 

can  be  no  other  than  those  formed  by  the  action  of    The'sponta 

,.,..,,  .  1  .  ,1         neons  organi;,c 

the  mdivicluals  composing  tiie  aggregate  society ;  tor  tiou  of  society 
to  assume  any  other  mechanism  would  be  to  assume 
society  already  known  to  us,  beyond  the  knowledge, 
barely  more  than  denotative,  that  it  is  an  aggregate 
of  individuals. 

2,  It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  or  describe  all 
the  groups  into  which  different  tendencies  of  cha- 
racter cause  individuals  to  fall;  such  an  exhaustive 
treatment  at  least  is  not  to  be  attempted  here.  The 
general  kinds  or  classes  of  groups  alone  can  be  given 
by  reference  to  the  main  distinctions  in  individual 
character  ;  and  these  will  serve  as  a  logical  frame- 
work for  future  arrangement  of  groups  as  they  may 
l)e  discovered.  Society  organises  and  distinguishes 
itself  into  the  minutest  sections;  a  group  is  no  sooner 
established  than  it  begins  to  unfold  explicitly  sub- 
ordinate groups,  bound  together  by  sub  tiler  interests, 
opposed  to  each  other  by  finer  distinctions.  And  not 
only  does  every  man,  as  already  remarked,  belong  to 
many  of  these  groups  at  the  same  time,  but  also  the 
groups  themselves  are  incessantly  changing  in  the 
men,  and  in  the  number  of  men,  whom  they  contain, 
in  obedience  to  the  knowledge  of  changing  circum- 
stances, and  to  changes  in  the  feelings,  of  the  indi- 
vidual members  themselves.  As  clouds  in  wind  they 
limn  and  dislimn  perpetually,  and  their  torn- ofi"  fringes 
melt  into  other  masses.  No  greater  error  can  be 
committed  than  that  of  supposing  the  whole  number 
of  the  members  of  any  group,  united  for  the  time  in 
any  purpose  or  policy,  to  be  individually  and  per- 
manently supporters  of  that  policy,  or  bound  to  effect 


102  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      that  purpose.      It  is  the  preponderating  influence, 

^ —         within  a  group  not  yet  dissolved,  which  determines 

The  sponta-     its  ovcrt  actioii  at  any  moment  on  a  given  question. 

neous  organisa-  ...  i   •    i 

tion  of  Society.  The  distinctions  therefore  which  are  now  to  be  ex- 
hibited are  distinctions  of  logic,  not  of  history ;  the 
classes  of  groups  logical  not  historical  classes.  Their 
lines  will  run  often  through  individuals,  having  the 
same  individual  on  both  sides,  distinguishing  one 
interest  of  his  from  another  ;  often  through  groups 
formed  by  other  lines  of  distinction.  The  empirical 
or  historical  groups  of  permanent  value,  formed  by 
the  coincidence  or  superposition  of  portions  of  several 
logical  groups,  are  not  the  first  object  of  logic,  but 
fall  within  the  province  of  history  and  of  practical 
policy.  But  these  remarks  will  perhaps  be  only  un- 
derstood by  the  actual  analysis  which  follows. 

3.  The  main  distinction  of  classes  of  groups  in 
society  is  derived  from  the  distinction  between  the 
interests  of  direct  and  the  interests  of  reflective  emo- 
tions. Each  of  these  two  main  classes  of  interests 
consists  of,  or  contains  within  itself,  particular  inter- 
ests, the  foundation  of  special  groups  ;  and  from  the 
combination  of  particular  classes  of  each  kind  there 
arise  groups  in  which  the  motives  of  coherence  and 
action  are  of  a  mixed  character.  The  interests  of 
direct  emotions  are  the  interests  of  bodily  or  material 
well-being,  to  use  the  term  'material'" in  its  ordinary 
sense  of  sensational  feeling  presented  or  represented. 
Material  commodities  or  material  wealth  are  the  ob- 
ject at  which  all  direct  emotions  aim,  which  they 
have  either  for  their  framework  or  for  their  desired 
end.  But  some  emotions,  enumerated  as  direct,  are 
carried  up  so  immediately  and  so  closely  combined 
with  reflective  emotions,  as  to  be  undistinguishable 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  10 


o 


from  these  in  their  operation  as  motives.     This  is  the       book  ii. 
case  with  the  direct  emotions  arisino-  from  the  form,         ^—  * 

S  88 

which  are  carried  up  into  imagination,  and  thence  into  The  spo'nta- 
poetry ;  and  this  is  the  case  with  the  direct  emotions  tiou  of  Society. 
of  comparison,  wonder  and  the  logical  instinct,  which 
are  the  foundation  of  the  intellectual  tendencies  of 
character,  leaving  only  the  sensational  matter  in  which 
they  arise  to  distinguish  them  as  direct  emotions.  In 
other  words,  whenever  the  direct  emotions  of  form 
and  of  comparison  exist  in  sufficient  strength  to  be 
noticeable  as  motives  at  all,  they  are  motives  of  re- 
flective action  more  than  of  direct,  and  must  be 
counted  as  motives  of  groups  formed  by  reflective 
interests.  Only  the  purely  direct  emotions  and  pas- 
sions are  thus  left  to  serve  as  the  foundation  of  groups 
of  direct  emotional  character,  aiming  at  pleasures  of 
sense  and  of  enjoyment ;  these  are  the  direct  kinds 
of  joy,  grief,  fondness,  aversion,  hope,  and  fear;  and 
they  have  for  their  object  or  aim  material  enjoyments 
and  material  possessions,     (See  §  17  and  §  20.  i.) 

4.  The  binding  power  which  the  acquisition  of 
material  possessions  and  material  enjoyments  exerts, 
in  grouping  men  together,  is  derived  from  a  physical 
law  of  the  visible  and  tangible  objects  in  which  those 
possessions  consist,  which  are  the  means  of  the  en- 
joyments; namely,  the  law  of  increase,  that  the  ob- 
jects acquired  are  the  source  of  further  acquisitions. 
Every  acquisition  may  either  be  consumed,  in  which 
case  it  produces  enjoyment,  or  it  may  be  saved  and 
employed,  in  which  case  it  produces  further  acqui- 
sition and  future  enjoyment.  Acquisition  is  an  uni- 
versal tendency ;  every  man  begins  by  acquiring  some 
commodities,  and  these  are  the  basis  of  the  concep- 
tion and  recognition  of  property.     In  using  acquisi- 


104 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


^^oK  II.      tions  for  further  acquisition,  some  man  or  men  must 

—         be  the  agents ;  these  have  de  facto  property  in  the 

Thesponta-     objects  acQuirecl.     The  recoo-nition  or  allowance  of 

iieous  organisa-  .^  -i  o 

tion  of  Society,  gucli  actual  eiijoyment  and  use  of  property  flows 
directly  from  the  perception  that  enjoyment  and  ac- 
quisition are  increased  by  recognising  it.  The  right 
of  property  may  have  other  sources  also,  but,  so  far 
as  this  source  goes,  it  is  one  founded  on  direct 
emotion.  Acquisition  of  wealth  and  acquisition  of 
property  go  hand  in  hand;  and  the  physical  law  of 
increase  of  wealth,  under  these  conditions,  binds  men 
together  by  satisfying  their  common  desire  of  mate- 
rial possessions  and  enjoyments.  This  is  one  source, 
not  the  only  one,  but  the  first,  most  universal,  and 
strongest,  of  society  among  large  numbers  of  men. 

5.  The  forms  which  wealth  assumes,  the  distinc- 
tions which  arise  in  it,  at  different  periods  of  civilisa- 
tion, are  very  different;  and  it  is  upon  these  forms 
and  distinctions  in  possessions,  different  from  time  to 
time,  that  are  built  the  most  striking  and  important 
distinctions  of  classes  of  men  in  society.  The  dis- 
tinction between  acquired  wealth,  as  a  means  to 
further  production,  and  the  powers  of  brain  and 
muscle  to  apply  these  means  is  the  distinction  be- 
tween capital  and  labour ;  and  the  possessors  of  each 
respectively  have  always  fallen  into  two  opposite 
classes  in  society.  The  further  acquisition  of  wealth 
produces  another  distinction  within  capital  itself, 
namely,  that  between  capital  employed  for  profit  and 
capital  lent  at  interest,  or  employed  to  procure  for 
its  possessors  interest  only  and  not  profits.  In  highly 
civilised  and  wealthy  communities,  there  will  always 
be  three  classes  in  society  which  are  distinguished 
from   each  other  by   the  possession   of  these  three 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  lO-J 

means  of  enjoyment,  labour,  capital  and  labour  com-       Book  n. 
bined,  capital  alone, — the  labourers,  the  profit-capi-         — —  * 
talists,   the   interest-capitalists.      I   have   drawn   this     Thespo'nta- 
out  at  somewhat  greater  length  in  a  little  work,  pub-  Uon'^of'swie^j! 
lished  in  1866,  entitled  Principles  of  Reform  in  the 
Suffrage  ;    and,   whatever  the  error  of  the  practical 
suggestion,    or    rather   illustration,    contained   in   its 
concluding  §,  I  still  think  it  sound,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
as  a  contribution  to  the  Logic  of  Politic,  which  was 
its  main  purpose. 

6.  These  .three  classes  are  the  most  general  groups, 
exhaustive  of  the  whole  of  any  society,  into  which  it 
tends  to  fixll  in  consequence  of  the  distinctions  of 
wealth  or  property;  class  differences  which  are  im- 
plicitly contained  in  every  society,  so  far  as  it  is 
bound  together  by  the  common  pursuit  of  wealth  or 
material  well-being,  and  explicitly  evolved  in  every 
such  society  so  soon  as  the  physical  laws  of  acquisi- 
tion and  distribution  of  wealth  come  into  fully  de- 
veloped action.  But  in  this  case  again  it  must  be 
remembered,  that  the  forms  which  these  classes,  and 
these  kinds  of  wealth,  will  assume  in  different  coun- 
tries, and  at  different  times,  will  be  very  different, 
and  that  so  will  be  also  the  relative  social  and  poli- 
tical importance  of  the  groups  of  men  composing 
them.  The  first  aim  of  loo-ic  is  to  oive  a  o-eneral 
classification  containing  under  it,  but  not  necessarily 
sjDecifying,  the  different  shapes  which  its  categories 
may  assume  according  to  different  combinations  of 
circumstances.  Other  circumstances  not  only  may 
but  must  combine  with  those  forming  these  groups, 
the  limits  of  other  groups  must  coincide  with  theirs, 
before  these  or  any  groups  can  take  their  place  as 
recognised  forces,   or  primary  component  members, 


106 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


The  sponta- 
neous Organisa- 
tion of  Society. 


of  a  nation  or  state,  before  they  can  become  objects 
of  scientific  history  as  well  as  of  political  logic. 

7.  It  is  next  in  order  to  examine  the  groups 
founded  on  the  reflective  emotions,  emotions  which 
are  the  constituents  of  character  in  the  strict  sense. 
Following  the  principle  already  adopted  in  the  direct 
groups,  we  must  take  these  emotions  in  their  de- 
velopment and  not  in  their  germ,  as  the  foundation 
of  groups.  Just  as  several  direct  emotions  were  ex- 
cluded from  forming  groups,  on  the  ground  that  they 
were  only  seen  in  action  as  contributories  to  reflec- 
tive emotions,  so  here  several  reflective  emotions  will 
be  excluded  from  forming  groups  on  the  ground  that 
they  have  by  themselves  no  career,  and  act  only  in 
modifying  the  groups  formed  by  those  that  have. 
The  reason  of  thus  proceeding  is  clear;  we  are  be- 
ginning here,  in  the  logic,  with  society  as  a  whole, 
endeavouring  to  break  it  up  into  its  general  logical 
constituents;  we  must  therefore  begin  with  those 
groups  which  are  the  largest,  the  most  permanent, 
and  the  most  important;  but  this  can  only  be  done 
by  taking  the  most  absorbing  types  of  character,  and 
by  taking  these  in  their  full  development  or  activity 
in  their  career.  In  this  way  are  first  excluded  the 
groups  formed  by  the  ambitious  type  of  character, 
founded  on  the  emotions  and  passions  of  comparison ; 
the  objects  of  ambition  are  so  numerous,  that  the 
groups  formed  are  very  small  and  very  fluctuating ; 
and  ambition  alone,  apart  from  these  its  accidental  ob- 
jects, is  not  a  bond  of  union  but  of  separation,  since 
all  its  emotions  are  so,  being  emotions  of  comparison. 
The  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  self- isolating  type 
of  character,  and  even  to  the  kind  of  pride  which  is 
self-respect.     It  is  only  accidentally  and  temporarily 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  107 

that  alliances  are  formed  from  mutual  satisfaction  of      book  il 

Oh   III 

these  wishes.    So  again  the  irascible  type  is  excluded ;         — 
alliances  may  be  formed  to  gratify  common  dislike     Thesponta- 

.  nenus  orsanisa- 

or  hatred,  but  they  are  nuctuatmg  and  temporary,  uon  of  Society. 
Here  is  seen  the  importance,  in  the  constitution  of 
society,  of  the  stress  laid  in  Book  i.  Chap.  iv.  on  the 
circumstance  of  a  career.  Emotions  and  passions 
which  have  no  career  do  not  enter  into  the  de  facto 
constitution  of  society  as  jDrimary  and  permanent,  but 
only  as  modifying,  elements.  The  "feeble  folk"  of 
amusement  seekers  are  indeed  in  permanent  alliance, 
but  they  are  a  group  whose  function  has  no  defined 
purpose,  and  which  serves  only  to  clog  the  activity 
of  the  rest.  They  fall  under  the  eye  of  history,  but 
logic  looks  and  passes  on. 

8.  The  remaining  types  of  character,  the  affec- 
tionate, the  duty-loving,  and  the  erotic  types,  and  the 
two  intellectual  tendencies,  constructive  and  accu- 
mulative, form  three  groups  in  the  following  manner. 
The  two  first-mentioned  types,  together  with  the  in- 
tellectual tendency,  form  in  their  development  a 
group  which  may  be  called  that  of  religious  emotion; 
the  third  type,  together  with  the  intellectual  tend- 
ency, with  the  desire  of  aesthetic  beauty,  and  the 
various  emotions  with  which  this  may  be  incorpo- 
rated by  imagination,  forms  the  group  of  poetical 
emotion;  and  the  two  intellectual  tendencies  alone 
form  the  group  of  knowledge  seekers  for  its  own 
sake.  These  three  groups,  each  bound  together  by 
permanent  and  strong  interests,  the  interest  of  in- 
creasing and  purifying  the  pleasures  at  which  they 
aim,  are  the  main  groups  founded  on  reflective  emo- 
tions, of  which  other  groups  are  the  modification  and 
differentiation.      These  three  groups   are   or  contain 


108  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      the  orgaiis  of  the  spiritual  interests  of  society ;  their 
—         aims  and  their  constitutive  interests  beino;  the  i^er- 

§  88.  .  .     .  ^  . 

The  spoota-     fectlou  of  Relio^ion,  Art,  and  Knowledo-e,  as  ends  in 

iieous  ori^anisa-  o  '  '  ^  o    / 

tiou  of  Society,  themselvcs,  and  apart  from  the  influence  they  have 
on  the  aims  of  the  direct  groups,  the  increase  of  ma- 
terial possessions  and  enjoyments.  The  latter  are  a 
de  facto  condition  of  the  former;  the  former  a  justi- 
fying condition  of  the  latter. 

9.  The  members  of  these  three  groups  are  scat- 
tered over  every  country  and  every  time,  they  are 
not  gathered  up  into  locally  united  bodies  commen- 
surate with  the  groups;  but  the  bonds  of  interest 
and  of  fellowship  are  not  less  powerful  on  that  ac- 
count, while  they  are  far  more  secure  from  the  in- 
terference of  foreign  interests.  Organise  a  spiritual 
group  as  a  civil  or  political  corporation,  and  eo  ipso 
its  material  interests  begin  to  take  the  ascendancy 
over  its  spiritual  ones.  It  begins  to  aim  at  material 
prosperity,  and  soon  proceeds  to  motives  of  ambition 
and  aggrandisement.  But  the  subtil  bonds  of  truly 
spiritual  fellowship  are  perceived  and  acknowledged 
by  the  brotherhood  all  the  world  over,  and  across  the 
barriers  of  time.  The  same  traits  of  character,  the 
same  interest  in  promoting  them,  are  recognised  by 
their  possessors,  who  hasten,  wherever  found, 

"  Di  fare  al  cittadin  suo  qiiivi  festa." 

Yet  these  groups  are  not  without  antagonism,  chiefly 
between,  but  also  within,  themselves.  Upon  the  an- 
tagonism of  each  group  to  the  others  there  is  no  need 
to  dwell ;  what  has  been  said  of  the  antagonism  of 
the  two  types  of  character,  the  poetic  and  the  reli- 
gious, in  §  73,  may  be  applied  to  the  groups  which 
they  form,  and  also  to  that  formed  by  the  intellectual 


THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC.  109 

tendency.  Within  itself,  however,  each  gronp  breaks  hook  ir. 
up  into  subordinate  groups,  according  to  the  influ-  -^—  ' 
ence  of  members  of  other  groups  which  unite  with     xhesponta- 

,  .  „  ,•  j_        ,•  n  neous  orRaiiLsa- 

it,  or  the  predominance  irom  time  to  time  oi  par-  tion  of  Society. 
ticular  reflective  emotions,  and  to  the  different  views 
which  its  members  may  take  of  the  requirements  of 
the  time  or  of  their  particular  circumstances.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  man  who  belongs  to  the  scientific 
group  may  belong  also  to  some  direct  group,  as  a 
member  of  which  his  intellectual  efforts  are  employed 
on  some  particular  subject,  engineering,  mining,  tele- 
graphy, and  so  on  ;  he  of  course  is  not  uninfluenced 
by  these  circumstances  in  the  view  he  takes  of  the 
relative  importance  of  branches  of  knowledge.  The 
general  character  of  the  purely  scientific,  reflective, 
group  will  be  obviously  modified  from  time  to  time 
by  the  prevalent  pursuits  and  aims  of  different  orders 
and  kinds  among  its  members.  But,  in  following 
up  farther  the  differentiation  of  groups,  we  should 
have  to  enter  upon  the  domain  of  actual  history,  the 
analysis  of  character  alone  offering  us  no  further 
ground  for  distinctions.  It  is  enough  in  this  para- 
graph to  point  out  the  mode  in  which  the  modifica- 
tion and  differentiation  of  groups  is  effected^ 

TO.  The  domain  of  actual  historv  must  however 
be  entered,  to  some  extent  at  least,  by  pomting 
out  some  of  the  most  important  groups  which  arise 
from  the  combination  of  motives  direct  and  reflective. 
These  groups  are  among  the  actual  concrete  groups 
which  are  within  the  cognisance  of  history,  and  their 
historical  importance  is  the  ground  of  selecting  them 
for  mention.  And  in  the  first  place,  intercommuni- 
cation by  means  of  speech  or  language,  whether  this 
consists  in  vocal  or  written  utterances,  or  in  picture 


110  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

oTIiV'      language,  or  in  gesture  only,  is  the  most  fundamental 

—         and  elementary  of  all  bonds  of  union.     The  whole 

Thesponta-     humau  racc  is  united  by  its  means;   and,  within  this 

neous  organ  isa-      ^  j  t  i 

tiou  of  Society,  limit,  any  particular  language  unites  all  those  who  un- 
derstand and  use  it,  and  separates  them  from  those 
who  do  not.  This  is  carried  down  to  the  minutest 
shades  of  difference,  to  differences  of  phraseology 
current  among  separate  cliques  or  sects,  each  clique 
having  a  slang  system  of  its  own.  Now  the  interest 
of  language  is  of  two  kinds,  first  reflective,  the  plea- 
sure of  communicating  thoughts  and  feelings  alone, 
to  which  must  be  added  the  pleasure  of  communi- 
cating particular  thoughts  and  feelings  for  their  own 
sake  ;  secondly  direct,  the  material  advantages  of 
concert,  of  which  it  is  the  condition.  Unity  of  lan- 
guage often  combines  with  unity  of  local  habitation 
and  with  unity  of  race  ;  these  three  interests  in  com- 
bination are  those  which  mark  out  the  actual  his- 
torical groups  knoAvn  as  nations  or  tribes  ;  and  it  is 
evident  that  they  combine  with  or  contain  the  in- 
terest of  common  pursuit  of  wealth. 

1 1 .  Unity  of  race  again  has  a  double  origin,  first 
the  actual  descent  from  a  common  stock,  secondly 
the  incorporation  of  new  members  into  families  and 
tribes  as  if  they  were  actually  so  descended.  The 
actual  descent  from  a  common  stock  rests  ultimately 
on  the  family  bond,  which  in  its  most  rudimentary 
state  is  the  bond  between  a  mother  and  her  offspring. 
Personal  affection,  first  between  mother  and  children, 
then  between  father  and  mother,  and  lastly  between 
father  and  children,  is  the  bond  of  the  family  at  a 
later  stage ;  but  to  reach  this  stage  material  interests 
must  have  come  into  play,  as  well  as  purely  spiritual 
ones  ;   and  families  in  this  stage  may  be  regarded  as 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  Ill 

the  most  elementary  molecules  of  a  fully  formed  na-      book  ii. 

Ph.  III. 

tion,  molecules  the  atoms  of  which  cohere  too  stronsflv        — 

is  88 

to  be  sundered,  notwithstandmg  that  we  can  pomt     Thesponta- 

.  -I   •    t  1  1      •  -I        '  /-  r>  neous  organisa- 

out  the  motives  which  produce  their  cohesion.  Of  siou  of  Society. 
these  motives  some  are  reflective,  others  direct.  The 
family,  then,  in  some  state  or  other,  rudimentary  or 
developed,  is  an  ultimate  empirical  group  in  any 
mass  of  men  which  may  be  taken  for  historical  exa- 
mination, 

1 2,   But  the  origin   of  society  is   not  yet  com- 
pletely accounted  for  ;   there  remains  the  third  ele- 
ment, unity  of  local  habitation.     We  may  break  up 
a  group  into  families,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
group  has  been  formed  out  of  those  families  ;  it  may 
be  that  the  group  existed  first,  and  was  afterwards 
dilFerentiated   into   the   families.      Physical   circum- 
stances may  have  thrown  men  together  into  a  group, 
by  giving  them  unity  of  habitation  ;   and  this  may 
have  been  an  indispensable  condition  for  the  family 
evolution.     Here  we  should  come  upon  the  physical 
condition  of  society,  which  compared  with  the  others 
is,  so  to  speak,  an  irrational  one,  that  is,  not  reducible 
to  human  motives,  at  least  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge.     The  other  conditions,  language  and  the 
family  bond,  may  be  so  reduced,  because  we  can  see 
from  what  kind  of  motives  they  derived  their  power. 
But  these  alone  do  not  furnish  a  sufficient  account 
of  the  origin  of  society ;   they  suppose  men  to  be 
already  in   some   sort  of  communication  with   each 
other ;  they  do  not  determine  the  numbers,  or  the 
outline,  of  a  group  as  a  whole.     For  this   it  seems 
recourse  must  be  had  to  some  physical  conditions 
with  which  we  are  unacquainted,   as  well  as  with 
their  mode  of  working  on  motives.     A  nation,  then. 


112  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      may  be  considered,  at  least  provisionally,  as  consist- 

—  "       ing  of  the   superposition  and  coincidence  of  groups 

The  sptmta-     of  thrcc  Ivinds  ;  first  of  those  who  speak  the  same 

neons  (irgai)isa-  n  r-  ,i  i        i     i 

tion  of  Society,  language,  secondly  ot  those  who  belong,  or  are  sup- 
posed to  belong,  to  a  common  stock,  and  thirdly  of 
those  who  are  thrown  together  into  a  common  local 
habitation. 

13.  Such  is  the  outline,  as  I  conceive  it,  of  the 
groups  into  which  men  tend  to  arrange  themselves, 
with  the  several  sensations  and  emotions  upon  which 
they  rest;  let  us  now  attempt  to  form  some  concep- 
tion of  the  mental  action  by  which  this  grouping  is 
accomplished,  and  of  the  changes  in  mental  imagery 
by  which  it  is  accompanied,  at  least  in  those  direc- 
tions which  depend  more  immediately  upon  the  cha- 
racter, and  are  most  strictly  entitled  to  the  name  of 
civilisation. 

14.  Besides  the  external  circumstances  affecting 
any  tribe  or  nation,  such  as  the  physical  features  of 
its  country  and  climate,  and  the  tribes  which  come 
into  contact  or  colHsion  with  it, — circumstances  which 
may  here  be  abstracted  from, — its  character  is  the 
source  of  its  civilisation ;  the  civilisation  of  a  people 
being  the  result  of  the  reaction  of  its  character  upon 
its  circumstances.  Those  mental  and  moral  features 
which  constitute  the  character  (§§  59,  60)  produce, 
in  their  operation  upon  the  objects  and  events  of  life, 
those  several  imaginative  structures  which  may  be 
conveniently  classified  under  the  four  heads.  Law, 
Creed,  Science,  and  Poetry;  together  with  the  asso- 
ciated systems  of  actions  which  are  either  necessary 
to  their  support  or  consequences  of  their  existence, 
such  as  language,  and  legal,  social,  and  religious  ob- 
servances.    Along  with  the  formation  of  these  fea- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  113 

tures    of  civilisatioD,   and   springing  from  the   same       book  h. 
source,  the  primitive  grouping  of  the  people  is  modi-         — 
fied  by  the  superposition  of  groups  whose  special  in-     The^ponta- 

.  n     -I  T  •  in-         neous  organisa- 

terest  lies  m  any  oi  these  directions,   such,   tor  m-  tion  of  Sodety. 
stance,    as  Kings  or  ruling  families,  priests,    bards, 
physicians.     Everything  in  the  society  has  its  root  in 
the  individual,  everything  in  history  has  its  root  in 
nature. 

15.  It  is  a  question  not  for  this  place  but  for 
special  history,  what  has  been  the  combination  of 
character  and  circumstance  which  has  produced  the 
particular  civilisation  of  this  or  that  people,  as  well 
as  to  trace  back  the  course  of  that  civilisation,  re- 
solve it  into  its  furthest  elements  and  causes,  and 
determine  what  and  how  much  is  due  to  the  one 
cause,  what  and  how  much  to  the  other.  Only  what 
is,  or  may  properly  be  held,  common  to  the  civilisa- 
tion of  all  people  belongs  here.  I  imagine  to  myself, 
then,  the  mental  and  moral  activity  of  a  community, 
in  its  earliest  stage,  as  containing,  implicitly  and 
undistinguished,  those  trains  and  systems  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  will  afterwards  one  by  one  sepa- 
rate themselves  from  the  parent  stem,  and  organise 
themselves  into  the  four  above  named  systems  of  ( 1 ) 
Legal  and  Social  institutions,  (2)  Religious  beliefs, 
(3)  Poetical  imaginations,  (4)  Scientific  or  Philoso- 
phical conceptions.  All  these  depend  directly  for 
their  formation  upon  those  emotions  and  tendencies 
which  have  been  included  in  the  term  character,  but 
upon  these  modified  by  the  circumstances  upon  which 
they  react,  and  themselves  developed  by  the  develop- 
ment of  those  systems  which  are  their  product.  The 
predominance  of  different  emotions  in  the  character 

VOL.  II.  I 


114  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL      of  different  nations  is  tlie  ultimate  source   of  their 

- —  '       different  systems  of  creed,  law,  or  custom. 
Thespo'nta-  1 6.  Let  US  cudeavour  to  imagine  the  mode  of 

neous  organisa-  -     •  n  ,^  ,  i    ,1      •  J        T    J-    ±.-        j.- 

tion  of  Society,  origiu  01  thcsc  systcms,  and  their  gradual  distinction 
from  each  other.  The  first  mode  of  conceiving  phe- 
nomena is  personification,  that  is,  to  conceive  them 
as  persons  acting  and  feeling  as  the  man  who  con- 
ceives them  feels  and  acts.  This  'judging  others  by 
oneself,'  judging  the  unfamiliar  by  the  familiar,  the 
unknown  by  the  known,  is  not  only  a  fact  to  be  as- 
sumed a  priori  from  what  we  know  of  human  nature, 
but  is  also  established  a  posteriori  by  what  we  know 
of  actual  mythologies.  And  again,  this  tendency  is 
not  only  the  first  step  in  human  development,  but 
its  continuing  method,  upon  which  the  unity  of  past, 
present,  and  future  development  depends.  Personi- 
fying imagination  is  still  the  parent  of  poetry  and  of 
religion,  though  under  widely  different  conditions  of 
knowledge. 

17.  Man  begins  by  personifying  everything  about 
him,  all  objects  and  all  forces  of  nature.  But  those 
objects  only  which  communicate  with  him  by  lan- 
guage are  his  allies;  they  alone  respond  to  him,  and 
express  feelings  like  his  own.  The  objects  and  forces 
of  nature,  though  conceived  by  him  as  persons,  are 
yet  strange,  uncommunicative,  some  indeed  benefi- 
cent and  friendly,  but  others  hostile  and  destructive.  • 
Two  kingdoms  of  persons  are  thus  established  in  his 
imagination,  his  human  compeers  and  his  divine 
friends  or  foes.  Hence  human  society  on  the  one 
hand,  divine  or  natural  beings  on  the  other.  Gra- 
dually was  made  the  discovery  that  the  forces  and 
objects  of  nature  were  not  animated  by  conscious- 
ness, but  were  obedient  to  fixed  laws,  by  obeying 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  115 

which  they  were  themselves  conquerable.     Then  be-      book  ii. 
gan  the  process  of  dismtegration  and  reintegration  of        -^  ' 
beliefs  concerning  them,  which  has  never  ceased,  and     xhe^sponta- 
in  which  we  also  are  sharers.     A  smiiiar  process  took  tiou  of  Society. 
place  with  the  phenomena  of  the  human  kingdom,  of 
which  in  like  manner  the  social  and  political  move- 
ment of  the  present  day  is  the  continuation.     Let  us 
begin  with  the  latter  ;    bearing  in  mind  that  both 
took  place  simultaneously,  and  in  constant  reaction 
on  each  other. 

1 8,  The  state  of  association  among  men  is  one 
which  has  no  antecedents ;  there  never  was  a  period 
of  isolation.  Not  to  speak  of  the  bond  which  con- 
nects the  mother  with  her  offspring,  there  is  a  sub- 
tiler  but  hardly  less  powerful  link  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  group  into  which  he  happens  to  be 
born.  The  strange  terrors  of  nature  bind  him  to  the 
society  of  his  human  compeers.  He  does  not  begin 
by  feeling  himself  independent,  and  then  form  an 
association  for  mutual  protection  and  advantage ;  he 
feels  himself  dependent  from  the  first.  To  form  an 
association  for  protection  and  advantage  is,  from  its 
commencement,  not  a  spontaneous  but  a  voluntary 
act,  an  act  done  for  a  purpose  lying  beyond  the  act 
itself;  were  such  an  act  the  origin  of  society,  we  must 
begin  with  imagining  men  isolated  and  independent. 
But  to  herd  together  for  the  sake  of  companionship 
in  presence  of  the  uncommunicative  powers  of  nature 
is  a  spontaneous  act  in  its  commencement,  and  from 
beginning  to  end  aims  at  no  satisfaction  beyond  what 
is  contained  in  the  act  itself.  Unless  we  go  back  to 
times  not  only  prehistoric  but  prehuman,  we  shall 
never  come  to  a  period  at  which  this  motive  of  asso- 
ciation is  inoperative;  and  society  is  thus  built  upon 


11 G  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  il      a   spontaneous  foundation  in  its  origin,  although  it 
^—  '      must  soon  have  received  accretions  due  to  voluntary 


The  spo'nta-       motlVCS. 
neous  organisa-  rpi  •     ,  r        1  •    I,     j.1  •'    T     •  1        1 

tion  of  Society.  1 9.   luc  socictj,  01  wnich  tnc  individual  never 

felt  himself  independent,  but  of  which  he  constantly 
felt  himself  a  merged  and  incorporated  member,  was 
one  half  of  his  entire  world,  of  which  nature  was  the 
other;  its  image  accompanied  him,  its  power  over- 
shadowed him ;  and  both  society  and  nature  he  alike 
personified.  He  did  not  k?i.ow  himself  and  thus  in- 
terpret nature  and  society ;  but  he  was  familiar  with 
himself  and  interpreted  them  thus.  Society  was  one 
great  personality,  nature  was  another,  but  neither  of 
the  two  originally  distinguished  into  independent  per- 
sons ;  these  had  first  to  be  evolved  out  of  the  mass. 
The  history  of  this  evolution,  with  the  analysis  of 
its  advancing  states,  is  the  history  of  religious  and 
intellectual  development  on  one  side,  of  law  on  the 
other,  and  in  both  together  of  society  itself  and  its 
members 'm  relation  to  it.  In  other  words,  the  per- 
sonification of  the  society  is  the  beginning  of  its 
actual  historical  evolution ;  and  law,  which  is  the  re- 
lation between  distinct  members  of  society,  the  mode 
of  coherence  of  its  parts,  some  commanding,  others 
obeying,  begins  with  the  first  distinction  drawn  be- 
tween its  members,  whether  between  the  organ  re- 
presenting the  whole  society,  the  sovereign,  and  the 
rest,  or  between  one  member  and  another.  The  law 
of  persons  or  status  is  thus  the  earliest  law;  the  law 
of  property  followed,  involving  more  complex  dis- 
tinctions. The  personification  of  society  is  the  origin 
of  law,  that  of  nature  of  theology. 

20.  I  am  disposed  to  see  in  this  identification  of 
self  first  with  the  society,  and  derivatively  with  the 


THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC.  117 

several   members  of  it,   the   root  notion  which  ren-       kook  il 
dered  possible  those  various  forms  of  substitution,         — 
vicarious  suffering,  and  sacrifice,  which  meet  us  in     Xhesponta- 

_,.  r-         1  1       •  1  1  neous  organisa- 

tlie  history  of  early  times ;  tor  the  gods,  it  was  thought,  tion  of  society. 
would  perceive  the  same  identity  between  the  per- 
sons. The  difficulty  to  avoid  transferring  in  thought 
one's  own  feelino;s  and  even  conditions  of  existence 
to  others,  the  inability  to  imagine  separate  in  fact 
what  has  been  associated  in  consciousness,  a  picture 
for  instance  from  the  person  depicted,  are  well  known 
features  in  uncultured  nations.  Add  to  this  the  tend- 
ency to  consider  one  member  of  the  society  as  equi- 
valent to  another,  a  tendency  arising  originally  from 
the  same  transference  of  individual  feeling,  and  we 
can  at  once  see  how  such  customs  as  the  Couvade, 
such  beliefs  as  that  "the  actions  and  food  of  sur- 
vivors affect  the  spirits  of  the  dead  on  their  journey 
to  their  home  in  the  after  life,"  (see  for  both  Mr. 
Tylor's  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Man- 
kind, Chap.  X.),  such  precepts  as  the  sanctification 
of  the  firstborn  in  Exodus  xiii.,  such  practices  as  the 
devotion  of  Decius  in  Livy  viii.  9,  and  the  sacrifices 
first  of  human  beinijs,  afterwards  of  animals  in  their 
stead,  as  shown,  for  instance,  in  the  sealing  of  the 
ox  for  sacrifice,  in  Pint.  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  xxxi., 
probably  originated,  and  in  what  modes  of  thought 
they  found  their  support.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
customs  here  mentioned  arose  exclusively  from  the 
transference  of  feeling  with  personification,  but  that 
this  was  one  source  from  which  they  sprang.  The 
Couvade,  for  instance,  may  also  be  connected,  as  Herr 
Bachofen  suggests  in  his  Das  Mutterrecht,  with  the 
period  of  transition  from  kinship  through  females 
only  to  kinship  through  males  also,  the  father  think- 


118 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II.      iiig  to  prove  his  paternity  by  taking  the  place  of  the 
— —  '       mother;  "  um  die  physische  Wahrheit  auf  das  Yater- 
The  spo'nta-     thuHi  zu  llbertragen,  wird  zuweile  die  Sitte  angenom- 


neous  organisa- 


tion of  Society,  men,  dass  bei  der  Niederkunft  des  Weibes  auch  der 
Vater  sich  zu  Bette  legt  und  die  Gebarende  nach- 
ahmt."  page  17.  But  to  render  this  explanation  con- 
ceivable, a  basis  of  imaginative  personification  must 
be  assumed. 

2  1.  The  community  of  property  in  families,  clans, 
and  tribes,  in  the  earliest  times  of  history,  is  another 
circumstance  which  requires  a  corresponding  com- 
munity of  personification  to  explain  it.  Had  there 
not  been  from  the  first  an  overpowering  sense  of 
identification  with  the  society,  how  could  the  com- 
mon possession  of  property  have  continued  to  exist, 
in  spite  of  the  tendency  to  separate  acquisition?  "We 
hear  nothing,"  says  Mr.  MacLennan,  in  his  Primitive 
Marriage,  p.  162,  "in  the  most  ancient  times  of  in- 
dividuals except  as  being  members  of  groups.  The 
history  of  property  is  the  history  of  the  development 
of  proprietary  rights  inside  groups,  which  were  at 
first  the  only  owners,  and  of  all  other  personal  rights 
— even  including  the  right  in  offspring — it  may  be 
said  that  their  history  is  that  of  the  gradual  assertion 
of  the  claims  of  individuals  against  the  traditional 
rights  of  groups." 

22.  The  researches  of  Herr  Bachofen  in  his  Das 
Mutterrecht,*  and  of  Mr.  MacLennan  in  his  Primi- 
tive Marriage,  and  in  his  two  papers  on  Kinship  in 
Ancient  Greece,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  April, 
May,  1866,  seem  to  me  to  have  thrown  an  entu'ely 

*  Das  Mutterrecht.— My  thanks  are  here  due  to  my  friend  Dr.  C.  Lottner  for 
pointing  out  to  me  this  and  other  works  bearing  on  the  subject  in  hand,  as  well  as 
for  his  friendly  and  valuable  criticism  on  my  first  sketch  of  these  paragraphs. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  110 

new  lioflit  on  the  prehistoric  times  of  mankind.     To      book  ti. 
adopt  some  expressions  irom  the  latter,  '  the  social        — 
unit  was  not  the  family  but  the  tribe,  and  the  first     The  spo'nta- 
families,  in  which  the   conception   of  blood-relation-  tion  of  Swiety. 
ship  was  involved,    consisted   of  mothers   and   their 
offspring.      This  was  the  first  step  out  of  savagery.' 
The  mental  process  was  one  of  gradually  disinte- 
grating and  organising  an  inorganic  whole ;  and  the 
moving  powers  in  this  process  were  the  relation  be- 
tween mother  and  child  on  one  side,  and  the  neces- 
sity, springing  from  material  needs,  of  seeking  wives 
from  without  the  tribe  on  the  other.      A  series  of 
changes  in  social  relations  was  thus  set  on  foot,  which 
ended,  at  the  beginning  of  the  historical  period,  that 
from  which  contemporary  records  have  come  down 
to  us,  in  the  acknowledgement  of  the  father  as  head 
of  the  family,  and  the  system  of  relationship  through 
males. 

2,3.  Every  step  in  this  progress  was  won  by  a 
hard  struggle  between  the  friends  of  the  new  and  the 
friends  of  the  old  state  of  things ;  and  the  intensity 
of  the  contest  was  marked  by  the  strictness  and  ex- 
clusiveness  with  which  the  victorious  system  was 
carried  out.  "  Das  romische  Paternitats- system  weist 
durch  die  Strenge,  mit  welcher  es  auftritt,  auf  ein 
friiheres,  das  bekampft  und  zuriickgedrangt  werden 
soil,  hin."  Das  Mutterrecht,  Vorrede,  p.  viii.  For, 
besides  the  personal  interests  which  are  always  in- 
volved, every  legalised  system  of  society  must  repose 
upon  some  corresponding  system  of  religious  or  at 
least  theological  convictions  ;  without  which  corre- 
spondence the  unity  of  human  life  would  be  impos- 
sible. Even  the  savage  state  of  more  or  less  promis- 
cuous intercourse  between  the  sexes  was  sanctioned 


120 


THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC. 


Book  II.      ]jy  religion,  and  marriage  itself  appeared  at  first  as 
—         the  trail so;ression  of  a  reli2:ioiis  command.     Only  out 

§88.  ,  »  .  °  ,  -^ 

The  sponta-    of  this  statc  of  tiling's  "  erlautert  sich  der  Gedanke, 

neous  organisa-  _  ^         '-'  ^ 

tion  of  Society.  (Jass  die  Elic  cinc  Slilme  jener  Gottheit  verlangt, 
deren  Gesetz  sie  durch  ihre  Ausschliesslichkeit  ver- 
letzt."  And  "  daraus  erklaren  sich  nun  alle  jene 
Gebrauche,  in  welchen  die  Ehe  selbst  mit  hetarischen 
Uebungen  verbunden  auffcritt."  Id.  id.  p.  xix. 

24.  But  let  us  now  turn  to  the  second  branch  of 
the  development,  religion.  Three  kinds  of  objects 
of  religious  personification  maybe  pointed  out;  1st, 
phj^sical  objects  and  events,  2nd,  social  objects  and 
events  of  fife,  3rd,  mental  powers  and  characteristics ; 
but  it  is  only  the  first  of  these  which  we  can  either 
suppose  a  priori,  or  find  indicated  a  posteriori,  to 
have  been  the  object  of  religious  personification  in 
the  earhest  stage  of  all.  Later  in  the  course  of  men- 
tal development,  since,  by  the  very  fact  of  personifi- 
cation, the  god  created  by  it  is  created  subject  to 
the  law  of  progress  in  the  mind  of  which  he  is  the 
creature,  these  divinities  may  either  be  themselves 
transformed  into  representations  of  the  second  and 
third  class,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  case,  for 
instance,  with  the  Greek  Zeus,  and  with  the  Charites, 
the  identity  of  whom  with  the  Haritas,  the  horses  of 
the  sun,  in  the  Vedas,  is  maintained  by  Prof.  Max. 
Miiller  in  his  essay  on  Comparative  Mythology;  or 
they  may  receive  as  companions  such  divinities  of  in- 
dependent though  later  origin,  such  as  were  appar- 
ently Hebe,  Themis,  Metis,  the  Muses,  and  many  of  the 
Heroes  of  Greek  mythology.  See  K.  0.  Miiller's  Pro- 
legomena zu  einer  mssenschaftlichen  Mythologie,  iv. 

25.  The  physical  objects  and  events  which  may 
be  personified  in  the  first  instance  are  very  numerous 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  121 

and  varied,  and  the  choice  of  those  which  became  book  ir. 
the  most  prominent  among  different  nations  must,  —  * 
I  think,  have  been  determined  at  least  as  much  })y     Thespoma- 

,  ,  1  T  nr  •  1         neous  organi^a- 

differences  m  the  character  as  by  dmerences  in  the  tion  of  Society. 
circumstances  of  the  people  who  were  led  to  select 
them.  Phenomena  of  the  sky,  storms,  clouds,  wind, 
light,  and  the  changes  of  the  day  and  year;  terres- 
trial phenomena,  rivers,  mountains,  sea,  trees  and 
forests,  seedtime  and  harvest ;  the  heavenly  bodies 
themselves,  the  sun  and  moon,  the  planets,  the  stars ; 
and  especially,  what  must  have  appeared  the  most 
marvellous  of  all,  the  different  animals,  of  earth,  sea, 
and  air,  some  wild  and  terrible,  others  capable  of 
domestication,  but  all  mysterious  as  bearing  a  half 
human  character  ;  such  were  the  phenomena  from 
which  men  must  have  selected  the  first  objects  of 
relio-ious  adoration.  And  the  results  of  their  choice 
may  still  be  read  incorporated  in  the  later  theology 
for  which  each  nation  was  specially  renowned,  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  astrolatry  and  astrology  of  the  Baby- 
lonians, and  in  the  Egyptian  worship  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  and  of  animals. 

26.  The  next  step  in  this  development  was  the 
separation  of  the  god  from  tlie  phenomena  which 
he  once  was  and  henceforth  only  ruled.  The  gods 
assumed  a  separate  and  independent  existence.  This 
opened  the  door  to  mythology  on  the  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  to  the  attribution  of  a  new  civil  cha- 
racter and  function  to  the  gods  whose  origin  was 
purely  physical ;  and  in  this  latter  way  law  and  reli- 
gion again  coalesce,  by  the  presidency  which  is  given 
to  the  gods  over  civil  customs  and  institutions. 

27.  In  the  mythology,  which  arose  from  the  sepa- 
ration of  god  from  phenomenon,  we  may  trace  the 


122  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  h.      consequences  of  the  separation.      In  Greece,  for  in- 
-^—  '       stance,  there  are  two  sets  of  Gods,  the  old  and  the 

§  88 

Thespo'nta-  ncw,  the  Titans  and  the  Olympians,  the  gods  of  na- 
tion of  Society,  ture  personified  in  their  old  form  and  the  gods  of 
nature  transformed  into  new  shapes,  Phoebus  Apollo 
side  by  side  with  Helios  Hyperion.  Although  the  pub- 
lic worship  now  became  fixed  in  established  forms, 
the  mythology  continued  to  undergo  development  at 
the  hands  of  poets  and  antiquarians.  The  religion 
of  the  people  in  Greece  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
public  sacrifices  and  ceremonies,  and  especially  in  the 
mysteries,  which  seem,  from  their  character  at  once 
solemn  and  unexclusive,  to  have  provided  the  chief 
means  of  satisfying  the  religious  feeling. 

28.  But  this  is  not  the  only  direction  of  religious 
development.  The  distinction  of  sex  is  often  found 
to  play  a  prominent  part  in  polytheistic  creeds.  The 
sexual  relation,  so  imj^ortant  to  men,  is  transferred 
to  the  Gods,  and  many  natural  processes,  such  as  the 
fertilisation  of  the  earth  by  rain  and  sunlight,  are 
interpreted  as  the  consequences  of  this  relation  be- 
tween the  personal  beings  into  which  the  objects  of 
nature  were  transformed.  An  abundant  mythology 
may  be  traced  back  to  this  conception. 

2,9.  A  far  more  subtil  and  probably  a  much  later 
distinction  is  that  between  the  principles  of  good  and 
evil ;  and  this  too  is  one  which  may  coalesce  with 
the  belief  in  older  physical  gods  ;  which  seems  to 
have  been  the  case  in  Mag-ianism,  the  relio;ion  attri- 
buted  to  Zoroaster.  Light,  the  original  physical  god, 
became  identified  with  Ormuz  the  good  spirit ;  and 
its  opposite,  darkness,  with  the  evil  spirit  Ahriman. 
It  is  a  case  falling  under  the  same  general  law  as 
that  of  the  conversion  of  Zeus,  the  upper  air  or  sky. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  12 


9 


into  Zeus  the  administrator  and  upholder  of  lustice      book  ir. 

,  T  "^  Ch.  III. 

among:  2:ods  and  men.  — 

30.  The  most  striking  case  in  which  the  coales-     The\si)o'nta- 
cence  oi  rengion  and  law,  above  mentioned,  is  ob-  tion  of  Society. 
servable  is  perhaps  that  of  the  Roman  people  ;   and 

this  owing  to  their  character,  in  which,  while  the 
love  of  home  and  family,  of  order  and  tradition,  was 
strongly  marked,  there  was  a  comparative  absence  of 
several  traits  which  are  j^rominent  in  other  nations, 
— of  poetical  fancy  such  as  distinguished  the  Greeks, 
of  philosophical  subtilty  which  seems  to  have  dictated 
the  two  principles  of  Magianism,  of  profound  religi- 
ous feeling  which,  as  will  appear  farther  on,  was  the 
basis  of  the  Mosaic  creed.  Here  then  the  religious 
development  assumes  its  most  marked  legal  charac- 
ter ;  you  might  almost  say  that  law,  embodied  in 
civil,  family,  and  national  tradition,  and  finding  its 
home  at  the  domestic  and  at  the  national  hearth,  was 
the  religion  of  the  Romans.  The  Lares  and  Penates, 
the  Genii  of  the  living,  the  Manes  of  the  dead,  the 
Vestal  Virgins  guarding  the  unextinguished  fire  in 
the  national  sanctuarj;',  Janus  the  closer  and  opener 
of  the  gate  which  separates  the  future  from  the  past, 
— these  and  such  as  these  were  the  images  which 
occupied  the  greater  part  of  Roman  religious  thought. 
Such  the  people  and  such  the  religion  from  which 
sprang  that  system  of  law  which  has  been  the  basis 
of  all  modern  jurisprudence.  Rome  starved  her  my- 
thology to  feed  her  law;  Greece  starved  her  law  to 
feed  her  mythology.  The  earliest  remaining  product 
of  Greece  is  the  Iliad,  the  earliest  of  Rome  the  Code 
of  the  Twelve  Tables. 

3 1 .  Judaism  too  begins  with  a  Code,  but  with  a 
Code  how  different  from  the  Roman.     Judaism  too 


124  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II, 
Ch.  III. 


had  no  poetical  mythology,  no  mythology  of  fiction. 
^TT         In  these  points  both  nations  alike  are  contrasted  with 
Thesponte-     i\^q   Greeks.     Law  is   the   common   around  of  simi- 

neous  organisa-  o 

tion  of  Society,  larity ;  it  is  within  this  that  they  are  themselves 
contrasted.  The  love  of  home  and  family,  of  family 
and  national  tradition,  is  the  feature  upon  which  is 
built  in  each  case  the  strong  tendency  to  legal  in- 
stitutions. But  the  Hebrews  were  endowed  with 
imagination,  the  Greeks  with  fancy,  the  Romans  with 
neither.  At  the  basis  of  the  Hebrew  character  lay 
the  same  strong  moral  tendency  as  at  the  basis  of 
the  Roman,  but  combined  with  an  equally  strong 
tendency  to  poetical,  that  is,  reflectively  emotional, 
imagination.  Two  consequences  may  be  traced  to 
this  fact,  first,  their  rich  mythology  of  ancestors  as- 
suming all  the  air  of  reality,  secondly,  their  religious 
lyrics.  Fiction  was  abhorrent  to  them,  and  there- 
fore they  believed  in  their  fictions ;  a  single  system 
of  thought  was  to  them  history,  law,  science,  and 
relio-ion  in  one. 

32,  With  the  Hebrews,  then,  law  was  not  com- 
bined with,  or  placed  under  the  sanction  of,  religion; 
but  rehgion  itself  became  law.  It  is  from  the  He- 
brews, or  rather  from  that  succession  of  prophetical 
minds,  which  never  failed  among  them  from  Moses 
to  Christ,  that  the  world  has  learnt  the  true  meaning 
of  the  term  Religion.  How  much  and  what  in  the 
Mosaic  legislation,  and  in  its  acceptance  by  the  people, 
was  due  to  the  character,  how  much  and  what  to  the 
circumstances,  of  the  nation,  I  will  not  attempt  to 
decide.  Much  must  have  been  due  to  the  former. 
Nor  perhaps  may  it  ever  be  made  out  with  certainty 
to  what  precise  branch  of  Semitic  religious  develop- 
ment the  previous  Hebrew  creed  belonged,  or  how 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  125 

much  intellectual  preparation  had  been  received  from       book  ir. 

Ch.  III. 


Egyptian  sources. 

23.  But  the  God  who  was  revealed  to  Moses,  and     The%ponta- 

,,.  1TT1  r  T_«>j_    neous  organisa- 

throuo-h  him  to  the  Hebrews,  was  oi  a  very  dinerent  tion  of  Society. 
nature  from  even  the  Good  Spirit  of  Magianism,  or 
from  any  Pervading  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  if  such 
an  one  should  be  thought  to  have  been  known  in 
Egypt  or  elsewhere.  The  God  who  met  Moses  in 
his  solitary  journeys  in  the  wilderness,  whose  abode 
was  behind  clouds  on  lonely  mountain  summits,  was 
the  God  of  conscience,  "  the  father  of  the  spirits  of 
all  flesh."  The  I  Am  is  the  second  self  of  every 
man ;  that  self  to  whom  he  goes,  in  imagination,  for 
sympathy,  comprehension,  and  support;  that  there- 
fore '  unto  whom  all  his  heart  is  open,  and  from 
whom  no  secret  is  hid;'  that  who  cannot  approve 
what  the  man's  conscience  will  disapprove;  that  to 
whom  he  must  justify  himself  or  forfeit  his  own  self- 
respect;  that,  therefore,  who  is  not  only  his  second 
but  his  ideal  self,  so  far  as  aims,  longings,  aspira- 
tions, are  concerned;  that  to  whom  no  second,  no 
sharer  in  sovereignty  is  possible,  being  one  as  the 
self  is  one ;  that  finally  who  cannot  be  torn  from  him, 
yet  who  is  a  friendly  power,  a  shield,  a  rock,  a  secret 
source  of  strength,  a  Deliverer,  as  well  as  a  justifier 
and  sanctifier.  Upon  this  God  Moses  and  the  people 
relied,  and  from  this  source  they  drew  the  law  of 
their  life.  It  was  no  intellectual  monotheism  which 
they  held,  no  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  power  sus- 
taining and  ruling  all  natural  phenomena,  such  as 
might  have  commended  itself  to  a  philosophical  in- 
telligence, but  an  emotional  choice ;  a  religion  not  a 
creed.  (See  Dr.  Ewald's  powerful  and  philosophical 
delineation  in  his  Geschichte  des  Yolkes  Israel,  Vol.  ii. 


126  THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC. 

bookh.      p.  138,  2nd  edit.  Das  Wesen  der  Gesetzo;ebuno;,  now 

Ch.  III.  .  .  O  07 

-^—  '       fortunately  accessible  in  an  Eno;lish  translation.) 
Thesponta-  34.    The   common  feature   in   all   religions,   that 

neous  organisa-         i-i-.-r'  '-it  ,i  i  ,i 

tion  of  Society,  wnicn  justiiies  US  lu  incluQing  them,  however  other- 
wise different,  under  a  common  name,  is  not  the  per- 
sonification which  they  involve,  for  this  underlies  all 
directions  of  mental  activity ;  it  is  that  peculiar  feel- 
ing of  awe  in  presence  of  the  immeasurable  and  mys- 
terious powers  of  nature,  which  in  early  history  are 
characterised  as  supernatural.  It  is  a  half  truth  to 
call  this  feeling  fear;  it  was  never  fear  simply,  but 
fear  of  the  immeasurable  and  mysterious;  the  feel- 
ing which  led  to  those  ])laces  being  regarded  as  the 
special  abodes  of  the  Gods  where  the  powers  of  na- 
ture made  themselves  most  strongly  felt,  the  solitudes 
of  forests  and  mountains,  the  feeling  which,  accom- 
panied in  the  earliest  times  by  the  sense  of  eeriness 
described  in  §  19.  4,  has,  in  the  latest  development 
of  it  we  are  acquainted  with,  no  other  material  ob- 
ject for  its  resting  place  than  the  infinite  frame  of 
nature  as  imaged  not  to  the  bodily  but  to  the  mental 
eye.  All  forms  of  divinity  alike,  whatever  the  mode 
of  their  production  in  belief,  to  whatever  process  of 
reasoning  or  of  imagination  they  may  have  owed 
their  origin,  were  held  as  exponents  of  these  supreme 
powers  of  nature,  and  from  this  filiation,  not  from 
themselves,  they  derived  whatever  religious  awe  they 
were  capable  of  inspiring.  This  awe  the  Mosaic  re- 
ligion had  in  common  with  all  others ;  its  God  was 
conceived  as  the  creator  and  sustainer  of  the  world ; 
that  which  distinguished  it  from  other  religions  was 
that  which  it  has  been  attempted  to  describe  in  the 
preceding  paragraphs. 

35.  But  it  is  time  to  turn  to  the  tAvo  remaining 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  127 


branches  of  the  development,  science  and  poetry.  Book  n. 
While  the  progress  hitherto  described  has  been  tak-  "— ' 
ing  place,  while  religions  have  succeeded  to  religions,  Thespo'nta- 
and  institutions  have  been  supplanted  by  institutions,  UoTof  bwty' 
the  changes  in  both  cases  alike  have  left  behind  a 
mass  of  recorded  or  unrecorded  error,  and  have  ac- 
cumulated and  organised  a  mass  of  more  or  less  per- 
fect truth.  Men  have  won  practical  truth  in  winning 
individual  liberty,  and  speculative  in  separating  the 
laws  of  natural  phenomena  from  the  arbitrary  action 
of  imagined  personalities.  But  in  doing  so  their 
own  individual  powers  have  not  been  weakened  but 
strengthened,  not  trammelled  but  set  free.  The  sepa- 
ration of  law  from  creed,  and  of  both  from  ungrounded 
fancy,  involves  the  separation  and  separate  exercise 
of  the  mental  activities  Avhich  are  principally  engaged 
in  each;  involves  the  formation  of  distinct  mental 
habits,  or,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  of  distinct 
fticulties  of  mind.  The  reasoning  powers  are  set  free 
to  examine  the  laws  of  phenomena,  the  imaginative 
to  arrange  those  phenomena  at  pleasure,  under  the 
guidance  of  any  emotion  which  may  be  selected. 
They  now  carry  on,  with  full  consciousness  of  its 
arbitrary  nature,  the  same  process  which  formerly 
issued  in  the  production  of  mythologies  once  believed 
in  as  truths,  but  now  perceived  to  have  been  without 
the  warrant  of  reason.  Poetry  and  science  take  their 
place  by  the  side  of  religion  and  of  law;  four  dis- 
tinct branches  from  the  parent  stem  in  which  they 
originally  grew  undistinguished. 

^6.  The  four  branches  divide  the  world  between 
them,  but  the  division  is  not  empirical  or  exclusive. 
Each  possesses  the  entire  world,  and  impresses  its 
own  character  upon  it.     IN'o  phenomenon  which  does 


128  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL      not  or  may  not  fall  under  the  dominion  of  each  in 

- — "       turn.     All  natural  phenomena,  being  the  objects  of 

The  spo'nta-     humau  energies,  may  be  contemplated  in  the  regula- 

neous  organisa-      .  ^,  -,,  i  •       ,  p        •        ,  •  r*  •        j.* 

tion  of  Society,  tious  01  law ;  all  are  objects  oi  scientmc  exammation, 
all  of  imaginative  metamorphosis ;  and  all  are  parts 
of  that  great  whole,  the  contemplation  of  which  is 
the  porch  and  antechamber  of  religion. 

^y.  And  here  I  must  be  allowed  a  word  of  hom- 
ao;e  to  the  illustrious  founder  of  modern  historical 
science,  Giambattista  Yico.  The  fundamental  con- 
ceptions, which  I  am  humbly  endeavouring  to  apply, 
he  was  the  first  to  proclaim.  The  conception  of  his- 
tory in  all  its  several  branches,  and  among  the  several 
races  of  man,  being  the  outcome  of  the  human  mind 
under  various,  but  fundamentally  similar,  conditions, 
and  explicable  only  by  being  referred  to  mental 
analysis,  is  the  conception  upon  which  the  Scienza 
Nuova  is  based.  "  Ma  in  tal  densa  notte  di  tenebre, 
ond'  e  coverta  la  prima  da  noi  lontanissima  Antichita, 
apparisce  questo  lume  eterno,  che  non  tramonta,  di 
questa  Verita,  la  quale  non  si  puo  a  patto  alcuno 
chiamar  in  dubbio ;  che  questo  Mondo  Civile  egli  certa- 
mente  e  stato  fatto  dagli  uomini:  onde  se  ne  possono, 
perche  se  ne  debbono,  ritrovare  i  Principj  dentro  le 
modijicazioni  della  nostra  medesima  mente  umanay 
The  second  Scienza  Nuova,  Vol.  v,  in  Ferrari's  edi- 
tion of  1854.  Lib,  i.  De'  Principj,  p.  136.  Combined 
with  this  conception  are  others,  among  which  the 
most  important  perhaps  are,  1st,  that  which  contains 
the  distinction  between  spontaneous  and  voluntary 
action,  "  Gli  uomini  prima  sento7io  senz'  avvertire ;  da 
poi  avvertiscono  con  animo  perturbato  e  commosso; 
finalmente  riflettono  con  mente  pura."  Lib.  i.  Degli 
Elementi,  liii.   p.   112;  and   2nd,  that  in   which  the 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  129 

orio;in  of  the  various  practical  sciences  is  referred  to      eook  ti. 

*  ^ '         T  T  T 

the   same   moment  as  the   perception   of  the   object-         ^—  ' 
matter  with  which  they  are  concerned,  "  Le  dottrine     The  spo'nta- 

Ti-i  '       '  -\  1  ••!  ,•      neous  organisa- 

debbono  commciare  da  qiiando  commciano  le  materie  tion  of  Society, 
che  trattano."    Id.  id.  cvi,  p.  131. 

37.  The  use  which  Vico  made  of  principles  like 
the  foregoing,  the  kind  of  importance  which  they  as- 
sumed in  his  eyes,  may  be  gathered  from  his  brief 
introduction  to  his  historical  construction  of  the 
earliest,  or  Poetico-theologic,  stage  of  civilisation,  Id. 
id.  Lib.  ii.  p.  156.  "  Propositione  e  partizione 
BELLA  SAPIENZA  POETICA.  Ma  pcrche  la  Metafisica  e 
la  Scienza  sublime,  che  ripartisce  i  certi  loro  subbietti 
a  tutte  le  scienze  che  si  dicono  subalterne ;  e  la  Sa- 
pienza  degli  Antichi  fu  quella  de^  Poeti  Teologi ;  i  quali 
senza  contrasto  furono  i  primi  Sapienti  del  Gentile- 
simo — come  si  e  nelle  Degnita  stabilito — e  le  Origini 
delle  cose  tutte  debbono  per  natura  esser  rozze ; 
dobbiamo  per  tutto  cio  dar  incominciamento  alia 
Sapienza  Poetica  da  una  7'ozza  lo7-  Metafisica ;  dalla 
quale,  come  da  un  ironco  si  diramino  per  un  ramo  la 
Logica^  la  Morale^  Y  Iconomica  e  la  Politica  tutte 
Poetiche ;  e  per  un  altro  ramo  tutte  eziandio  poetiche 
la  Fisica,  la  qual  sia  stata  madre  della  loro  Cos7no- 
graphia^  e  quindi  dell'  Astronomia ;  che  ne  dia  accer- 
tate  le  due  sue  figliuole,  che  sono  Cronologia  e  Geo- 
graphia.  E  con  ischiarite  e  distinte  guise  farem 
vedere,  come  i  Fondatori  deW  Umanita  Gentilesca  con 
la  loro  Teologia  Naturale  o  sia  Metafisica  s'  immagi- 
narono  gli  Dei;  con  la  lora  Logica  si  trovarono  le 
lingue;  con  la  Morale  si  generarono  gli  Eroi;  con 
r  Iconomia  si  fondarono  le  Famiglie ;  con  la  Politica  le 
citta ;  come  con  la  loro  Fisica  si  stabilirono  i  Principj 
delle  cose  tutte  divini ;  con  la  Fisica  Particolare  dell' 

VOL.  II.  K 


130  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.  JJomo  in  UH  certo  modo  o-enerarono  se  meclesimi ;  con 
Ch.  in.  ^      ^  '^ 

- —  la  lore  Cosmographia  si  finsero  un  lor  Universo  tutto 

Thesponta-  (Ji  Dci  t  con  V  Astroiiomia  portarono  da  Terra  in  Cielo 


neous  ortranisa- 


tion  of  Society,  i  Piancti  e  le  costellazioni ;  con  la  Cronologia  diedero 
principio  ai  tempi;  e  con  la  Geographia  i  Greci,  per 
cagion  d'  esemplo,  si  descrissero  il  Mondo  dentro  la 
loro  Grecia.  Di  tal  maniera,  che  questa  Scienza  vien 
ad  essere  ad  un  fiato  una  Storia  deW  idee,  costumi  e 
fatti  del  gener  umano :  e  da  tutti  e  tre  si  vedranno 
uscir  i  Principj  della  Storia  della  Natura  Umana ;  e 
quest'  esser  i  Principj  della  Storia  Universale,  la  quale 
sembra  ancor  mancare  ne'  suoi  Principj."  The  close- 
ness of  the  parallel  between  these  conceptions  and 
those  of  modern  scientific  historians  needs  hardly 
to  be  pointed  out.  Modern  knowledge  may  have 
escaped  many  of  the  errors  as  well  as  added  much  to 
the  stock  of  truths  contained  in  the  Scienza  Nuova, 
but  its  fontal  principles  are  the  principles  of  Vico. 

^,   §^9.  ^  89.  I.  Hitherto  the  oro;anisation  of  society  has 

The  voluntary  •'  ~  •/ 

organisation  of  been  considcrcd  as  entirely  spontaneous ;  not  that  all 

Society.  ^  ... 

the  actions  constitutmg  it  have  not  been  voluntary 
acts  so  far  as  the  individuals  are  concerned,  but  that 
there  has  been  no  action  of  the  society  as  a  whole,  or 
of  any  of  the  groups,  which  has  proceeded  from  a 
conscious  purpose  aimed  at  by  the  groups  or  by  the 
society.  It  is  true  that  we  never  find  a  group  formed 
without  finding  it  also  acting  voluntarily,  as  if  it  had 
a  single  consciousness  and  a  single  will ;  but  from  this 
action  we  have  hitherto  abstracted.  The  spontaneous 
and  the  voluntary  action  of  a  group,  or  of  society, 
proceed  in  close  connection  with  and  interdependence 
on  each  other;  the  former  being  both  the  material 
modified  and  the  means  of  its  modification  by  the 
latter.     It  is  with  society  in  this  respect  precisely  the 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  131 

same  as  with  the  mdividual;   his  volition  arises  in,       BookIL 
and  works  with,  the  means  and  objects  of  movement         ^—  ' 

'.  .  S  89. 

provided  by  his  spontaneous   redintegrations,   upon    The  voiuntarj- 
which   it  reacts   and  which  it  moulds  to  different     ''society. 
purposes. 

2.  In  the  first  place,  and  before  proceeding  to  the 
distinction  between  the  spontaneous  and  voluntary 
action  of  a  group  or  groups,  the  very  elements  of  the 
question  must  be  cleared  of  an  ambiguity  which  em- 
barrasses them.  The  familiar  use  of  the  single  term 
'action  of  a  group,'  as  if  there  was  unity  of  person 
and  of  act  in  the  group,  leads  us  to  imagine  its  action 
as  a  single  thing,  unanalysable,  an  ultimate  entity. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  Suppose  that  three  persons 
A.  B.  C.  form  the  group  P.  Any  action  said  to  be 
P's  must  be  either  three  actions,  precisely  similar  in 
every  respect,  done  by  A.  B.  C.  separately  ;  or  it 
must  be  three  different  actions  done  by  them  sepa- 
rately but  concurrent  to  one  complex  group  of  ac- 
tions, as  in  building  a  house  one  mixes  the  mortar, 
another  lays  the  bricks ;  or  it  must  be  one  act  done 
by  one  of  the  three,  the  others  approving  and  con- 
senting. The  action  of  a  group  is  always  analysable 
into  several  actions  of  several  members.  The  im- 
portance of  insisting  on  this  plain  elementary  truth  is 
evident  when  we  consider  a  further  ambiguity  which 
arises  from  neg'lectino;  it.  It  is  often  uro-ed  that 
examination  of  the  actions  of  men  in  masses  must 
precede  examination  of  the  actions  of  individuals,  in 
order  to  lead  to  profitable  results.  There  is  a  sense 
in  which  this  both  can  and  ought  to  be  done ;  there 
is  another  sense  in  which  it  is  impossible.  The  na- 
ture of  the  actions  of  a  group,  that  is,  of  society,  or 
of  men  in  masses,  can  only  be  understood  by  prior 


132  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      examination  of  the  actions  of  individuals ;    this  fol- 

^—  '       lows  directly  from  what  has  just  been  said.     But  the 

The  voluntary  historj  of  particular  actions,  whether  of  individuals, 

organisation  of  i  •      i         n       ,  •       i  ,    i 

Society.  or  oi  groups,  or  01  mankind  collectively,  must  be  en- 
tered on,  laying  first  the  enquiry  into  nature  at  the 
basis,  by  beginning  with  the  actions  of  groups  or 
masses;  the  reason  for  which  is,  that  the  collective 
actions  of  masses  or  groups  are  the  most  influential 
determinants  of  the  particular  actions  of  individuals. 
Hence  in  ethic,  and  in  the  logic  of  practice  in  all 
its  branches,  which  deal  with  questions  of  nature 
and  not  of  history,  actions  of  individuals  give  the 
point  of  view  from  which  the  whole  subject  must  be 
treated. 

3.  The  distinction  between  the  spontaneous  and 
voluntary  action  of  a  group  is  to  be  thus  drawn. 
When  one  or  more  members  of  any  group  become 
conscious  of  the  nature  of  the  group  to  which  they 
belong,  and  of  its  relations  to  other  groups,  and,  so 
distinguishing,  place  ends  before  them  to  be  reached, 
or  actions  to  be  performed,  by  the  group,  as  more 
desirable  than  other  ends  or  actions  which  mig'ht  be 
chosen;  in  other  words,  when  the  group  or  some  of 
its  members  seek  to  modify  the  action  of  the  group 
as  a  whole;  then  the  action  of  the  group  becomes 
voluntary  instead  of  merely  spontaneous,  becomes 
volition  guiding  spontaneous  action.  There  are  no 
actions  which  do  not  fall  under  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  heads;  and  this  distinction  between  spon- 
taneous and  voluntary  action  is  therefore  exhaustive, 
and  leaves  no  further  class  of  action  unaccomited  for^ 
This  change  from  spontaneous  to  voluntary  action  is 
also  a  further  distinguishing  of  groups  in  the  society 
or  group  in  which  it  takes  place.     Those  members  of 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  133 

the  group  who  entertam  the  purpose  of  modifying  book  it. 
its  action  are  themselves  formed  into  a  new  o^roup  —  * 
within  it  by  the  very  circumstance  of  this  common   The  voiuntarj- 

K.I  1  11  organisation  of 

^  It   were    a   smgle    member    only   who       Society. 

formed  the  purpose,  he  would  be  equally  distin- 
guished from  the  rest  in  virtue  of  it ;  and  if  it  were 
the  entire  number  of  members,  they  would  have 
clothed  the  group  itself  with  a  new  function,  and 
would  stand  towards  other  groups  in  a  double  in- 
stead of  a  single  relation,  would  be  virtually  two 
groups  instead  of  one.  The  two  kinds  of  action  may 
be  best  distinguished  by  calling  one  force,  the  other 
power,  and  speaking  of  the  spontaneous  forces  and 
the  voluntary  powers  of  society.  The  distinction 
itself  is  the  most  fundamental  and  important  one  in 
practical  politic,  or  policy,  since,  when  we  come  to 
the  consideration  of  what  is  feasible  and  practicable 
as  well  as  desirable,  one  most  important  branch  of 
feasibility  consists  in  the  amount  and  kind  of  spon- 
taneous forces  which  the  legislator  or  administrator, 
who  is  the  organ  of  the  voluntary  power,  can  reckon 
upon  to  second  him,  or  must  count  upon  to  fail  or 
oppose  him,  in  adopting  and  carrying  out  the  pur- 
poses which  he  wishes  to  have  effected  by  the  col- 
lective action  of  the  community. 

4.  All  the  groups  formed  by  interests  simple  or 
complex  in  the  spontaneous  action  of  society  thus 
tend,  by  the  mere  development  of  intelligence,  to 
organise  themselves  into  subordinate  groups ;  the 
three  material  groups  and  the  three  spiritual  groups, 
for  instance,  as  well  as  those  smaller  ones  which 
they  embrace.  But  all  these  are  embraced  by  the 
concrete,  empirical,  historical  groups,  which  are  com- 
posed by  their  combination  and  superposition;    the 


134  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

BooKiL      family,  the  race,  the  nation,  for  instance;  and  thus 

—         within  these  historical  groups,  and  incessantly  modi- 

The  voluntary  fyino;  them,  procccds  th6  same  analytic  and  synthetic 

organisation  of*^.^  •^.  ..., 

Society.       action,  producing  further  organisation  in  the  mass  of 
historical  groups  themselves. 

5.  There  are  two  main  movements  or  relations  to 
be  considered  in  this  organisation,  the  internal  and 
the  external,  the  relation  of  the  parts  to  each  other 
and  to  the  whole,  and  the  relation  of  the  group  itself 
to  other  groups.  Let  us  begin  mth  considering  the 
action  of  the  spiritual  and  material  powers  as  operat- 
ing between  group  and  group.  With  regard,  then, 
to  these  relations,  whether  the  groups  are  them- 
selves nations  or  groups  within  nations,  the  moment 
at  which,  by  a  newly  developed  organ,  a  group  be- 
gins to  exercise  a  voluntary  action  on  other  groups 
is  the  moment  of  its  actuation  by  new  motives,  by 
the  addition  of  interests  of  rivahy  and  ambition,  re- 
flective emotions,  to  those  interests,  whether  direct  or 
reflective,  which  actuate  it  already.  It  makes  no 
diff'erence  what  is  the  character  of  the  group,  whether 
spiritual  or  material;  the  organ  which  expresses  its 
volition  in  respect  to  other  groups  must  make,  not 
only  the  material,  but  also  those  among  the  spiritual 
interests  of  the  group  which  are  founded  in  emotions 
of  comparison,  distinct  objects  of  its  volition.  The 
ever  recurring  argument  in  justification  of  this  is: 
the  purposes  of  our  group,  our  nation,  our  party,  are 
good  and  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  at  large ;  there- 
fore, the  more  power  we  possess,  the  better  for  those  in- 
terests. It  is  a  case  of  the  general  law,  that  strength 
is  the  .de  facto  condition  of  an  interest  existing,  the 
nature  of  the  interest  the  justifying  condition  of  the 
strength  which  supports  it.     But  the  question  whe- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  135 

ther,  in  any  particular  case,  the  acquisition  or  con-      rookii. 
soliclation  of  power  is  really  justified  by  the  interests         -^— ' 
which   it  professes  to   support,  must  be  judged  by  The  voluntary 
considering  the  true  nature   of  those  interests,   and  ""^^sodety." '^ 
the  true  relation  between  them  and  the  supporting 
power.     It  may  happen  that  the  success  of  the  power 
in  question,  in  the  objects  of  its  ambition,  may  be  the 
very  circumstance  which  is  to  change  its  character 
as  a  supporter  of  the  interests  on  which  it  professes 
to  be  founded.     This  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which 
names  and  professions  most  often  conceal  the  nature 
of  the  things  which  they  are  employed  to  signify. 

6.  The  new  organ,  exerting  the  will  of  the  group 
as  a  whole,  is  in  the  case  of  a  national  group  called 
the  sovereign,  and  the  nation  a  state.  The  terms, 
sovereign  and  sovereign  state,  are  usually  applied 
only  to  nations  which  are  habitually  and  de  facto 
independent,  or  not  subject  to  any  foreign  power. 
But  the  office  is  the  same,  in  point  of  nature,  in  the 
case  of  any  group  whatever ;  whatever  is  the  pur- 
pose of  the  group  as  a  whole,  its  governing  organ 
is  the  organ  of  that  purpose,  and  to  that  extent  the 
sovereign  of  the  group.  Other  groups  can  look  only 
to  this  organ  for  its  expression  and  enforcement.  It 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  sovereign  of  a  group 
provides  only  for  the  material  interests  of  the  group. 
On  the  contrary  it  was  shown,  in  the  preceding  para- 
graph, that  motives  of  ambition  were  imported  into 
the  group,  even  though  not  included  in  its  original 
purposes,  by  the  mere  fact  of  its  organisation  under 
a  sovereign.  The  purpose  of  the  sovereign  is  the 
promotion  of  all  its  interests,  material  and  spiritual 
alike,  the  interests  of  all  its  sub-groups,  in  their 
several  degrees ;  otherwise  it  would  not  be  the  sove- 


136  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      reiffii  of  the  whole.     Hence  there  can  be  no  sjreater 

Ch.  III.  . 

— -         mistake  than   to   distinguish   the   so-called  temporal 

&  89 

The  voluntary  and  Spiritual  powers  by  assigning  material  interests 

organisation  of  ,  i  i     •  i  i  rrii 

Society.  to  the  ouc  and  moral  interests  to  the  other,  ine 
spiritual  power  when  organised  under  a  sovereign 
aims  at  material  as  well  as  moral,  the  temporal  at 
moral  as  well  as  material  interests.  Call  if  you  like 
the  Church,  the  Bar,  the  Press,  literary  and  scien- 
tific societies,  guilds  of  artists,  and  so  on,  spiritual 
powers,  but  remember  that  they  are  also,  and  indeed 
chiefly,  temporal  powers,  organised  groups  aiming  at 
the  promotion  of  their  professed  spiritual  purposes 
only  under  condition  of  the  prosperity  and  power  of 
their  societies  themselves.  Spiritual  interests  alone, 
or  in  their  logical  purity,  have  no  home  in  groups 
organised  under  governing  organs.  Here  is  the  cause 
of  the  eternally  renewed  antagonism  between  inter- 
ests and  groups  which  are  really  spiritual,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  already  organised  societies  called  by 
the  same  names,  on  the  other;  the  cause  why  newly 
proclaimed  truths  must  make  their  way  over  the 
bodies  of  organisms  which  have  once  embodied  the 
principles  of  those  very  truths.  The  mere  develop- 
ment of  knowledge,  in  one  case  with,  in  the  other 
without,  the  clogging  interests  of  an  organised  group, 
•  inevitably  produces  this  antagonism  in  its  onward 
progress.  It  is  a  problem  for  history,  to  show  how 
this  organisation  of  spiritual  interests  combines  with 
the  tendency  to  take  names  for  things,  with  the  per- 
manence of  external  habits  and  symbols,  compared 
to  the  feelings  they  are  intended  to  express,  in  short 
with  the  easier  comprehension  of  images  than  of  emo- 
tions by  the  majority  of  men,  to  produce  the  full 
amount  of  resistance  to  the  light  exerted  by  societies 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  137 

called  spiritual,  when  once  they  have  been  established       0°^  n^' 
and  organised.  — 

7.  The  ffovernino;  oro;an   or  sovereign  of  every   The  voluntary 

,  '-'  '^  .  organisation  of 

group  provides  on  the  other  hand  for  all  the  inter-  Society. 
ests,  Avhether  spiritual  or  material,  of  its  members 
or  subjects.  There  is  no  difference  in  this  respect 
between  the  so-called  temporal  and  spiritual  powers. 
The  distinction  between  such  so-called  spiritual  and 
temporal  powers  as  Church  and  State  is  an  empirical 
distinction;  the  names  are  good  as  denotations,  but 
false  as  connotations;  the  organised  church  is  not 
more  a  spiritual  power  than  the  state,  the  state  not 
more  a  temporal  power  than  the  church.  The  truly 
and  purely  spiritual  power  has  no  organisation  under 
a  governing  body  of  any  sort.  The  temporal  power 
in  its  true  sense  exists  wherever  there  exists  such  an 
organisation.  The  difference,  therefore,  between  the 
modes  of  action  of  the  spiritual  forces  and  the  tem- 
poral or  rather  the  sovereign  power,  in  respect  to 
other  groups,  is  very  striking.  The  spiritual  and 
material  interests,  it  will  be  remembered,  distin- 
guished groups  from  each  other,  as  spiritual  and 
material  groups  or  societies,  in  the  spontaneous  stage 
(§  88.  8);  but  on  passing  into  the  voluntary  stage, 
on  the  organisation  of  these  groups  under  sovereigns 
representing  their  entire  will,  this  distinction  is  re- 
placed by  a  new  one,  that  between  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  powers,  as  now  defined  in  their  true  and 
logical  sense.  The  spiritual  power  is  or  contains  all 
those  interests  of  a  reflective  emotional  nature  which 
are  not  provided  for,  or  provided  for  insufficiently,  , 

by  the  temporal  power,  the  sovereign  of  the  group. 
Where  its  arm  is  too  short,  its  touch  too  coarse,  its 
vision  too   weak,   to   penetrate,   there   the   spiritual 


138 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Bookil      power  steps  in  with  its   instinctive  judgments,   its 

-^—         imaginative  purposes,  its   subtily  communicated  in- 

The  voluntary   tuitious.     Individuals  are  its  organs,  and  individual 

orgauisation  of       ,  .  _  -^  ,1 

Society.  Character  its  source  oi  power.  It  permeates  all 
groups  however  hostile;  where  men  are,  there  it 
is  found,  de  jure  supreme  ;  it  binds  together  those 
whom  the  temporal  power  would  keep  asunder.  (La 
Mennais  has  expressed  a  similar  thought,  and  drawn 
a  similar  distinction,  in  the  preface  to  his  translation 
of  the  Di\dna  Commedia,  as  I  have  seen,  since  the 
above  paragraphs  were  written,  from  an  article  in 
the  Fortnightly  Review,  Jan.  1st,  1869,  p.  24.) 

8,  I  express  no  opinion  whether  or  not  the  form- 
ation of  a  new  spiritual  power  (so-called),  such  as 
Auguste  Comte  has  aimed  at  founding,  is  probable, 
or  whether  or  not  it  is  desirable,  questions  which 
are  beyond  the  scope  of  this  work.  Were  such  a 
power  to  arise,  it  would  in  my  opinion  offer  only 
another  instance  of  a  temporal  power  characterised, 
from  some  of  its  functions,  as  spiritual,  although  its 
action  might  be  on  the  whole  beneficial,  or  even  in- 
dispensable to  the  continued  moral  progress  of  man- 
kind. The  same  law  would  then  begin  to  come  into 
operation,  as  in  the  case  of  former  spiritual  powers ; 
that  is,  the  true  spiritual  power  would  again  be  found 
in  individuals  as  well  without  as  within  the  organised 
hierarchy.  Indeed  Comte  himself  appears  to  admit 
almost  as  much  when  he  speaks  of  "  I'esprit  universel 
de  critique  sociale,"  in  those  invaluable  pages  which 
he  devotes  to  a  sketch  of  the  present  condition  of 
society,  and  to  laying  the  foundation  of  a  regenerated 
order,  I  mean  the  latter  half  of  his  57th  Le9on,  Cours 
de  Phil.  Pos.  vol.  vi.  Every  enforcement  or  esta- 
bhshment  obtained  for  morality  by  organising  public 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  139 

opinion  is  obtained  at  some  cost  of  its  freedom,  that      '^^ok  it. 
is,  of  its  spiritnality ;  and  this  loss  of  spirituaUty  is         — 
the  o-reater  the  greater  the  potency  "with  which  opi-   The  voluntary 

^  ,  J.  ^  i  org.iiiisatiim  of 

niOn  enforces  it.  Society. 

9.  Between  states  the  spiritual  power  exerts  itself 
in  International  Law.  This  is  its  province  and  its 
creation.  International  law  is  above  sovereigns  and 
sovereign  states,  but  its  de  facto  enforcement  comes 
from  its  free  recognition  by  them,  as  the  law  of  a 
spiritual  sovereign.  Two  features  are  the  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  international  law ;  it  is 
distinguished  from  ethical  or  moral  law  by  its  com- 
manding only  overt  or  transeunt  actions,  although 
its  scope  contains  immanent  actions  also,  in  common 
with  all  law  as  shown  in  §  84.  i,  2;  and  it  is  dis- 
tinguished from  other  laws  of  overt  action  by  the 
fact  of  its  duties  being  all  duties  of  imperfect  en- 
forcement. It  is  subordinate  to  the  moral  law,  and 
must  conform  to  its  aims,  and  it  must  be  established 
by  temporal  and  national  sovereigns,  and  derive  its 
de  facto  sanction  from  their  power.  But  when  it  is 
said  that  the  aims  of  international  law  are  governed 
by  the  moral  law,  it  does  not  follow  that  all  the 
duties  of  individuals  are  imposed  upon  nations  by 
morality.  Those  duties  which  require  personal  affec- 
tion, for  instance,  actions  which  can  only  flow  from 
love,  cannot  be  required  of  states,  because  they  have 
not  the  single  consciousness  which  alone  feels  this 
interest ;  a  state  as  such  can  feel  no  love  to  another 
state  as  such,  for  love  is  a  personal  feeling  between 
single  individuals;  a  state  therefore  cannot  be  com- 
manded to  do  acts  of  love,  without  being  commanded 
to  feel  not  only  an  immanent  emotion,  but  an  imma- 
nent emotion  only  possible  to  an  individual.     Acts 


140  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      of  beiievolence  and  alliance  are  all  in  this  kind  that 
-^—  *       can  be  commanded,  for  these  are  feelings  which  every 
The  voluntary  individual  of  a  state  can  feel  towards  every  indivi- 
Soci^tyr  ^'    dual   of  other    states,   without  personal   intercourse 
with  them.     Justice  again  is  as  universally  possible 
as  benevolence.     Justice  and  benevolence  are  there- 
fore the  general  or  all-embracing  duties  imposed  by 
morality  on  international  law. 

10.  In  the  action  between  groups  in  the  same 
state,  the  only  difference  to  be  observed  between  their 
duties  and  those  of  nations  is,  that  they  are  governed 
and  limited  by  the  laws  imposed  by  the  sovereign  of 
the  state.  Where  these  laws  are  silent  or  unenforced, 
there  the  conduct  of  group  to  group  is  governed  in 
its  overt  acts  by  morality,  is  the  subject  of  a  kind  of 
international  law  between  the  groups,  A  company 
or  association  for  any  purpose,  within  the  state,  is 
bound  to  observe  rules  of  honour,  equity,  and  be- 
nevolence, towards  other  companies  or  individuals. 
Morality  takes  up  their  conduct  where  the  law  of 
the  state  leaves  it.  And  the  same  moral  law,  which 
is  the  de  jure  fountain  of  state  law  itself,  is  also  the 
de  jure  fountain  of  that  law  which  governs  actions 
of  smaller  bodies  of  men  too  minute  or  too  subtil  to 
be  regarded  by  legislative  enactments  applicable  to 
the  whole  nation.  Public  opinion  supplies  the  sanc- 
tion of  this  intersocial  law. 

11.  It  is  ideally  possible,  that  the  whole  group  of 
sovereign  states  which  compose  mankind  may  in  the 
course  of  time  develop  an  organ  which  shall  repre- 
sent them  all  in  matters  of  international  law,  a  tri- 
bunal invested  by  common  agreement  with  power 
sufficient  to  enforce  its  decrees  between  state  and 
state.     If  this  should  ever  take  place,  and  to  what- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  141 

ever  extent  it  takes  place,  international  law  would       ^^^Jh 

Ch.  III. 

still  not   lose   its  two   characteristic   features.      The         7-7 
states  which  had  come  to  the  aojreement  in  question    The  voluntary 

'-'  ^  ^    _  A  organisation  or 

would  become  members,  in  certain  judicial  matters,  society. 
of  a  federation ;  and  their  international  law  would  to 
that  extent  become  a  constitutional  one.  If  they  so 
far  coalesced  as  to  form  a  single  sovereign  state,  the 
only  law  having  the  two  characteristics  in  question 
would  be  constitutional  law,  law  within  the  state  com- 
manding duties  of  imperfect  enforcement,  but  duties 
consisting  in  overt  acts. 

12.  We  enter  here  on  the  second  branch  of  the 
enquiry,  that  of  the  action  of  the  material  and  spi- 
ritual powers  within  groups  and  not  between  them, 
as  proposed  in  paragraph  5.  Since  every  group  is 
broken  up  into  subordinate  groups  or  into  individ- 
uals, and  both  are  objects  of  the  positive  law  of  the 
state,  the  action  of  the  spiritual  power  within  groups 
has  been  sufficiently  treated  of,  for  the  purposes  of 
logic,  in  what  has  been  said  of  the  action  of  group  on 
group  in  paragraph  10.  The  spiritual  power  as  such 
has  no  direct  and  immediate  action  excej^t  on  indi- 
viduals ;  its  office  is  to  form  public  opinion  to  de- 
mand reform  and  improvement  in  existing  de  facto 
laws,  and  to  lay  by  the  same  means  the  foundation 
of  de  jure  vaUdity  of  international  and  intersocial 
law.  Intersocial  law  however  having  been  sufficiently 
treated,  the  only  action  of  spiritual  power  remaining 
is  that  which  is  manifested  in  the  state  as  a  whole, 
that  is,  in  constitutional  law;  while,  since  the  action 
of  group  on  group  within  the  state,  so  far  as  subject 
to  law  not  intersocial,  is  governed  by  the  positive 
law  of  the  state  sovereign,  in  adding  the  treatment 
of  the  positive  law  of  the  state  (see  §  90)  to  that  of 


142  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Ch^'i//'      ^^^  constitution  we  shall  have  completed  the  exami- 
7—        nation  of  the  whole  subiect. 

§89.  '' 

The  voiuntarj'  j,    Xhc  constitution  of  a  state  (to  speak  first  of 

orgauisation  of  «-'  ^  ••- 

Society.  cascs  whcrc  it  is  unwritten)  grows  up  pari  passu  with 
that  process  of  evolution  and  conflict  of  forces  which 
determines,  from  time  to  time,  the  group  or  groups 
who  are  the  sovereign  of  the  state.  The  principles 
appealed  to  and  acted  on  in  this  conflict,  defined 
partly  by  the  laws  actually  made  in  consequence  of 
them,  and  partly  by  the  ends  to  which  they  are  per- 
ceived to  tend  by  the  most  intelligent  members  of 
the  state,  are  the  constitution  of  that  state ;  and  thus 
the  constitution  grows  up  side  by  side  with  the  so- 
vereign, existing  actually  at  every  moment  of  his- 
tory, and  existing  ideally,  or  as  the  perfection  of  the 
political  action  of  the  state,  in  the  minds  of  states- 
men and  philosophic  historians.  The  constitution 
may  be  defined  as  the  law  of  harmonious  develop- 
ment of  all  the  forces  and  powers  of  a  state  ;  the 
idea  of  the  constitution  as  the  final  or  perfect  con- 
dition of  the  state  under  this  law,  or  of  the  law 
exemplified  in  the  state,  now  imagined  only,  but 
imagined  as  capable  of  realisation  and  in  order  to  be 
reahsed.  The  constitution  is  thus  a  work  partly  of 
spontaneous  partly  of  voluntary  action  of  the  nation, 
having  its  foundations  in  the  former,  its  modifica- 
tions in  the  latter.  To  the  state  it  is  a  law  of  nature 
which  may  be  conquered  by  obeying  it.  Yet  the 
true  nature  of  the  constitution  and  of  its  idea  is 
perceived  only  by  the  spiritual  not  by  the  temporal 
power,  by  the  sovereign  only  so  far  as  the  individuals 
who  compose  the  sovereign  are  men  of  statesmanlike 
insight  and  volitions.  Consequently  there  is  no  tri- 
bunal which  can  enforce  the  constitution  by  punish- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  143 

ino"  its  infrincrement.    Yet  more  and  more  of  the  true       book  it. 

^  .         .  ,  Cif.  III. 

nature  of  the  constitution  may  be  known  from  time         — 
to  time;  and  this  knowledpje  be  more  and  more  widely   The  vohmtan- 

.  .  1         1   •    1       organisation  of 

spread.  Public  opmion  is  the  only  tribunal  which  Society. 
can  enforce  constitutional  law,  and  this  it  will  do 
more  or  less,  precisely  in  proportion  as  it  has  the 
knowledge  of  what  the  constitution  is,  and  the  will 
to  aim  at  its  fuMlment.  For  the  distinction  between 
this  and  constitutional  law  in  another  sense,  namely, 
the  law  prescribing  rights  and  duties  to  different 
members  of  the  sovereign,  see  Austin's  Province  of 
Jurisprudence,  p.  228,  2nd  edit. 

14.  The  establishment  of  a  written  document  as 
organic  law,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  makes  no  difference  with 
its  two  characteristics  as  constitutional  law.  The 
constitution  of  the  United  States  is  properly  called 
by  the  writers  in  the  Federalist  "a  limited  consti- 
tution;" it  is  limited  in  being  a  particular  form,  a 
particular  conception,  of  the  constitution  of  those 
states,  adopted  out  of  that  law  of  natural  and  ideal 
development  which  governs  them,  adopted  soon  after 
the  time  of  their  actual  combination  in  the  war  of 
independence,  and  determined  by  the  state  of  their 
knowledge  to  the  best  of  their  ability  as  a  law  which 
they  would  all  agree  to  obey.  A  written  document 
can  no  more  exhaust  the  political  constitution  of  a 
state,  than  a  written  book  can  exhaust  the  physio- 
logical constitution  of  a  race.  That  stage  of  consti- 
tutional development  reached  at  the  time,  by  the 
United  States,  was  arrested,  written  down,  and  voted, 
in  order  to  prevent  retrogression  and  secure  union; 
it  was  reasonably  hoped  that,  once  tried,  its  incon- 
testable benefits  would  assure  its  permanence.     But 


144  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      it  is  still  a  law  enforced  by  the  same  j)ersons  as  it  is 

—         enforced  upon ;  it  has  legal  validity,  de  jure  as  well 

The  voiuntarj'   as  dc  facto,  oulv  SO  loiio"  as  thosc  who  have  to  obey 

organisation  of  7  ./  o  j 

Society.  choose  to  cnforcc  it.  The  only  difference  between 
a  written  and  an  unwritten  constitution  is  this,  that 
in  the  former  case  a  new  function  is  added  to  the 
ordinary  functions  of  the  Judiciary,  the  function  of 
interpreting  and  applying  a  written  constitutional 
code.  All  positive  law  is  an  arresting  and  fixing 
of  commands  already  supposed  to  be  sanctioned  by 
morality,  a  makmg  good  the  moral  ground  already 
won  in  order  to  secure  further  progress ;  but  consti- 
tutional and  international  law  are  not  arrested  and 
fixed  in  an  equal  degree  with  the  rest,  because  the 
sovereign  who  establishes  them,  imposing  them  only 
on  himself,  enforces  them  by  no  punishment.  To 
adopt  Austin's  expression,  they  are  not  law  in  the 
full  sense,  but  positive  legal  morality.  In  the  actual 
progress  of  mankind  from  law  to  morality,  from  ex- 
ternal observances  to  internal  duties,  from  legal  bond- 
age to  moral  freedom,  these  codes  of  positive  legal 
morality  stand  mid  way  and  prepare  further  domains 
for  inclusion  in  morality.  The  sovereign  is  morally 
bound  to  observe  and  promote  the  constitution,  with 
his  best  abilities,  and  in  that  which  is  to  him  its 
truest  meaning. 

15.  The  spiritual  forces  in  any  nation  or  state 
thus  find  their  embodiment  and  become  powers,  not 
in  any  group  or  groups  of  men,  but  in  constitutional 
and  intersocial  law,  and  between  states  in  interna- 
tional law.  Both  as  forces  and  as  powers  they  re- 
side in  individuals,  not  in  groups;  but  as  powers 
they  exist  in  the  shape  of  definite  doctrines  and 
maxims  held  in  common  by  many  individuals,  and 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  145 

enforced  l)y  the  opinion  common  to  them,  that  is,  hookH. 
by  a  pubUc  opinion.  All  groups  of  men  on  the  other  -^—  " 
hand,  whatever  the  interests  may  be  which  consti-    Thevoiuntan' 

,  ,  organisation  of 

tute  them  as  groups,  are,  when  they  act  as  powers,  society. 
exert  a  collective  action,  or  exercise  the  volition  of 
the  grouj),  homogeneous  with  the  temporal  power, 
as  it  is  called,  the  sovereign  power  in  a  state.  It 
now  becomes  the  question,  how  the  sovereign  of  a 
state  is  determined,  what  powers  are  those  which 
from  time  to  time  become  the  organs  of  the  state 
sovereignty.  It  has  been  already  said,  that  this  pro- 
cess of  determination  goes  on  pari  passu  with  the  de- 
velopment of  the  constitution.  The  organs  or  groups 
exercising  the  sovereignty  are  organs  not  only  of  the 
nation  as  consisting  of  groups,  l)ut  also  of  the  nation 
as  developing  its  constitutive  law.  But  the  motive 
power  in  the  determination  of  the  organs  of  sove- 
reignty is  found  only  in  the  interests  which  animate 
the  different  groups  composing  the  nation,  and  in 
the  force  which  these  groups  exert  in  giving  effect 
to  those  interests.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  logical 
division  of  these  groups  gives,  1st,  the  three  groups 
of  labourers,  profit-capitalists,  and  interest- capitalists, 
and  2nd,  the  three  groups  of  churchmen,  men  of 
science,  and  artists.  The  mixture  and  superposition 
of  these  logical  groups  produce  others  with  which 
history  is  more  familiar ;  such,  for  instance,  as  land- 
owners, bankers,  merchants,  manufacturers,  farmers, 
retail  dealers,  skilled  labourers,  agricultural  labour- 
ers, mechanics,  unskilled  labourers;  clergy,  lawyers, 
literary  men,  men  of  science,  artists,  educators ;  mili- 
tary men,  both  officers  and  privates,  naval  men  with 
the  same  distinction.     It  is  from  the  power  exerted 

VOL.  II.  L 


146  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Ch^hi^*      ^y  ^^^^^  groups,  and  from  the  alliances  formed  be- 

—         tween  them,  that  results  the  choice  of  the  sovereign, 

The voiuutary   gr  oro;an  reprcsentino;  the  nation  as  a  whole,   and 

organisation  of  "-'  ^  ^  ^ 

Societj\  forming  it  mto  a  sovereign  state.  But  this  power 
of  the  groups  consists  chiefly  in  means  to  supply  or 
provide  for  the  felt  necessities  of  the  time,  whether 
their  own  or  those  of  other  groups.  The  need  for 
defence  from  foreign  nations  and  the  pleasure  taken 
in  military  adventure  are  two  concurrent  sources  of 
power  in  the  military  group.  Similarly  the  means 
of  providing  for  religious  wants  of  the  community 
and  the  pleasure  in  estabhshing  a  religious  cultus 
are  concurrent  sources  of  power  in  the  clergy.  It 
may  often  be  the  interest  of  several  groups  to  favour 
each  other's  development.  In  that  case  they  would 
tend  to  share  the  state  government  between  them. 
They  would  naturally  take  the  lead  of  groups  which 
possessed  less  means  of  supplying  the  necessities  of 
the  time;  and  these  other  groups  would  be  content 
to  have  their  necessities  so  provided  for.  The  felt 
necessity  of  providing  for  settlement  of  disputes  be- 
tween men  or  between  groups,  for  the  public  ad- 
ministration of  justice,  would  be  another  want  which 
some  group  or  other  would  find  itself  in  a  better 
position  than  others  to  supply;  power  or  wealth  al- 
ready acquired  is  that  which  puts  a  group  or  an  in- 
dividual in  such  a  position;  and  the  pleasure  of  acting 
in  that  manner,  together  with  the  honour  and  other 
recompences  attendmg  it,  is  the  motive  for  doing  so. 
Hence  a  group  of  lawyers  would  become  incorporated 
in  the  sovereign  organ. — This  brief  sketch  will  be 
sufficient  to  show  what  is  meant  by  saying,  that  the 
sovereign  is  determined  by  the  mutual  interest  and 
relative  power  of  groups. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  147 

1 6.  An  instance  showing  the  operation  of  groups      bookil 
and  interests  in  obtaining  for  themselves  a  share  in         -^—  ' 

.  .  .  §  89. 

the  sovereignty,  and  developing  the  constitution  of  Thevoiuntarj- 
a  state,  may  be  found  in  the  history  of  Rome,  from   "'^Sodety.'^ " 
the   expulsion   of  the   Kings   to   the   unity   of  Italy 
under  Roman  power  after  the  defeat  of  Pyrrhus,  a 
period  of  about  250  years,  described  by  Dr.  Mommsen 
in  the  three  first  Chapters  of  the  second  Book  of  his 
History  of  Rome.     He  distinguishes  three  chief  ele- 
ments in  the  evolution.     The  first  was  the  struggle 
for   limiting   the   power   of  the  magistrates ;    "  this 
struggle  was  carried   on  within  the  burgess -body. 
Side  by  side  with  it  another  movement  developed 
itself — the  cry  of  the  non-burgesses  for  equality  of 
political  privileges.    Under  this  head  are  included  the 
agitations  of  the  plebeians,  the  Latins,  the  Itahans, 
and  the  freedmen,  all  of  whom — whether  they  may 
have  borne  the  name  of  burgesses,  as  did  the  ple- 
beians and  the  freedmen,  or  not,  as  was  the  case  with 
the  Latins  and  Italians — were  destitute  of,  and  laid 
claim  to,  political  equality.     A  third  distinction  was 
one  of  a  still  more  general  nature;  the  distinction 
between  the  wealthy  and  the  poor,  especially  such 
as  had  been  dispossessed  or  were  endangered  in  pos- 
session.    *     *     *     On  these  distinctions  hinged  the 
internal  history  of  Rome,  and,  as  we  may  conjecture, 
not  less  the  history — totally  lost  to  us — of  the  other 
Italian  communities.     The  political  movement  within 
the  fully  -  privileged  burgess -body,  the  warfare  be- 
tween the  excluded  and  excluding  classes,  and  the 
social  conflicts  between  the  possessors  and  the  non- 
possessors  of  land — variously  as  they  crossed  and  in- 
terlaced, and  singular  as  were  the  alliances  they  often 
produced — were  nevertheless  essentially  and  funda- 


148  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

BooKiL      mentally  distinct."     Dr.  Dickson's  Eng.  Translation? 
ch^i.       ^^^^^  .^       269.  ed.  1868. 

§  89 

The  voluntary  1 7.  Wheii   thc    sovcrcign   govemmcnt   is   estab- 

'^Soclety,""  lished  and  organised,  and  its  different  functions  dis- 
tributed to  different  permanent  bodies  or  individuals, 
recognised  as  permanent  offices  although  the  indivi- 
duals filling  them  may  change,  stiU  the  same  law 
continues  to  operate.  Public  opinion  concerning  the 
constitution  has  been  formed,  a  line  of  public  policy 
adopted,  both  in  home  and  foreign  matters,  as  well 
as  the  sovereign  itself  organised.  The  law  then  mani- 
fests its  continued  operation,  not  by  new  groups  of 
forces  in  the  nation  becoming  powers  in  the  govern- 
ment or  sub-organs  in  the  sovereign,  but  by  the 
change  of  men  required  by  any  apparently  import- 
ant change  of  measures.  The  transition  from  the 
Carolingian  to  the  Capetian  dynasty  in  France,  as 
described  by  M.  Guizot  in  his  Civilisation  en  France, 
Vol.  iii.  p.  286,  is  an  instance.  One  cause  of  a  change 
in  policy  requiring  a  change  of  men  is  the  distrust 
Avhich  the  men  representing  the  new  or  rising  policy 
feel  for  the  men  who  represent  the  old  or  vanishing 
policy;  a  distrust  founded  on  two  facts,  1st,  the  force 
of  habit  which  must  tend  to  make  the  old  men  act 
in  the  old  ways,  2nd,  the  interest  which  they  will  feel 
in  restoring  the  old  state  of  things,  as  most  obviously 
bound  up  with  their  own  renown.  The  same  cause, 
namely,  the  dislike  to  break  with  the  old  connection 
of  ideas  and  throw  themselves  heartily  into  the  new 
policy,  acts  also  upon  the  representatives  of  the  old ; 
and  this  must  tend  to  make  them  withdraw  from 
active  life  and  repose  on  their  old  laurels,  awaiting 
the  judgment  of  posterity. 

18.   The  continuance  of  the  same  law  is  shown 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


149 


again  by  the  course  wliicli  revolutions  take  in  the 
modification  of  the  parties  who  carry  them  forward. 
M.  Guizot  furnishes  another  instance  in  point,  by  his 
admirable  exhibition  of  such  modifications  in  the 
English  Civil  War  under  Charles  1.,  in  his  Histoire 
de  Civilisation  en  Europe,  Lecon  13™'^.  "  Trois 
partis  principaux  se  montrent  dans  cette  puissante 
crise  ;  trois  revolutions  y  etaient  en  quelque  sorte 
contenues,  et  se  sont  successivement  produites  sur  la 
scene.  Dans  chaque  parti,  dans  chaque  revolution, 
deux  partis  sont  allies  et  marchent  ensemble,  un  parti 
politique  et  un  parti  religieux ;  le  premier  a  la  tete, 
le  second  a  la  suite,  mais  necessaires  I'un  al'autre; 
en  sorte  que  le  double  caractere  de  I'evenement  est 
empreint  dans  toutes  ses  phases."  These  three  par- 
ties were  those  of  legal  reform,  with  its  religious 
adjunct,  the  party  of  church  reform  within  episco- 
palian limits;  of  political  reform  with  its  Presby- 
terian adjunct;  of  republicanism  with  its  Independent 
adjunct.  Now  the  stand  which  the  King  made  against 
the  first  party  gave  the  preponderance  within  it  to 
the  second,  with  which  it  had  to  ally  itself;  the 
continued  resistance  of  the  royalists  transferred  the 
preponderance  again  in  like  manner  to  the  third 
part}^ ;  and  the  men  of  the  third  party  remained  in 
possession  of  afi'airs,  on  the  victory  which  they  had 
gained  in  common.  The  successive  appearance  of 
the  three  parties  was  due  to  the  successive  changes 
in  public  feeling  and  public  opinion ;  it  was  the  state 
of  this  feeling  and  opinion  from  time  to  time  which 
gave  the  preponderance  to  each  policy  in  turn;  and 
in  this  feeling  and  opinion  the  men  were  not  separ- 
ated from  the  policy.  The  changing  or  developing 
course   of  public  opinion  and  feeling,  expressed  by 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 


§89. 

The  voluntary 

organisation  of 

Society. 


150  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL      the  growth  of  One  party,  the  decay  of  another,  is  the 

— -        real  determinant  of  who  are  the  men  thrown  into 

The  vohmtcary   power  bv  revohitions ;  and  this  by  determining;  the 

organisation  of  .         .  .  . 

Society.  poKcy  in  favour,  and  by  the  necessity  of  fixing  on  the 
ablest  organs  of  that  policy.  The  men  can  do  nothing 
but  take  advantage  of  this  changing  course  of  public 
opinion,  which  they  can  do  little  to  guide.  Had  the 
King  succumbed  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle, 
Cromwell  could  never  have  been  Lord  Protector. 

19.  The  perception  of  the  benefits  of  a  settled 
government,  a  perception  which  is  part  of  public 
opinion  and  feeling,  is  of  course  one  of  the  strongest 
causes  of  its  establishment  and  maintenance.  This 
feeling  of  benefit  is  so  strong,  that  an  enormous 
amount  of  misconduct  and  failure  in  any  long-estab- 
lished government  is  often  required  to  overcome  it; 
all  established  governments  resting  also  upon  inter- 
ests of  many  subordinate  groups,  to  whose  members 
they  assure  a  settled  and  desirable  career.  If  any 
great  interest  is  neglected  by  an  established  govern- 
ment, two  remedies  are  open  to  it;  it  may  either 
endeavour  to  have  its  interests  regarded  by  the  ex- 
isting government,  or  it  may  endeavour  to  obtain  for 
itself  a  larger  share  in  the  organisation  of  the  sove- 
reign power.  The  sovereign  is  constituted  by  the 
transformation  of  spontaneous  forces  into  voluntary 
powers ;  it  is  the  organisation  of  those  powers.  To 
allow  a  force  to  constitute  itself  as  a  power,  that  is, 
to  organise  itself,  outside  of  the  sovereign  organism, 
is  to  create  an  imperium  in  imperio,  dangerous  and 
revolutionary  in  proportion  to  the  force  which  is  thus 
converted  from  a  friend  into  an  enemy.  Such  a  re- 
volutionary state  of  things  appears  to  me  to  exist  in 
this  country  at  the  present  day.    We  are  in  the  midst 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  151 

of  the  struggle  for  incorporating  the  working  class,  book  it. 
the  great  bulk  of  the  people,  into  the  general  organi-  ^—  ' 
sation  of  the  country.      They,  however,  feel  more   The  voluntary 

-I       ,T  T       •  o  '  ,1  •  .  organisation  of 

strongly  the  desire  tor  removing  the  various  mcon-  Society. 
veniences  which  burden  their  industrial  and  social 
condition  than  the  desire  for  political  incorporation. 
From  these  motives  they  have  not  only  begun  but 
have  carried  to  a  ffreat  leno;th  the  formation  of  a 
political  organisation  of  their  own,  the  system  of 
Trades  Unions ;  political,  not  because  it  was  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  acting  on  the  general  political  or- 
ganisation of  the  country,  but  because  it  is  already 
of  itself  such  an  oro;anisation  of  the  classes  included 
in  it,  and  must  in  time  act  as  such  upon  the  general 
organisation  of  the  country,  from  which  it  is  ex- 
cluded. Now  the  Representation  of  the  People  Act, 
1867,  is  an  endeavour  to  incorporate  the  working 
classes  into  the  general  political  organisation  of  the 
country ;  but  its  success,  though  ardently  to  be  de- 
sired, is  still  problematical.  It  has  to  contend  with 
a  partial  political  organisation,  an  imperium  in  im- 
perio,  already  constituted,  with  one  which  is  conform- 
able to  the  views  of  the  classes  embraced  by  it ;  while 
these  classes  on  the  other  hand  have  hitherto  mani- 
fested indifference  to  the  general  political  organisa- 
tion to  which  they  are  invited  to  accede,  and  to  many 
at  least  of  the  political  conceptions  upon  which  it  is 
based.  The  strength  of  the  Trades  Union  system,  as 
a  political  power,  is  derived  from  the  general  social 
and  industrial  discomfort  of  the  classes  which  it  or- 
ganises ;  the  question  is,  in  what  way  this  discomfort 
will  be  removed,  or,  failing  that,  m  what  way  the 
force  generated  by  it  will  find  its  outlet.  Our  pre- 
sent Parliamentary  constitution  seems  to  me,  there- 


152  THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      ^q^q^  to  1)6  ill  R  vevy  Critical  position.     Bat  it  must 

- —         be  remarked,  that  its  rival,  the  Trades  Union  system, 

The  voluntary   is  itsclf  of  the  samc  gcnus,  a  mode  of  ojovernment  by 

organisation  of  o  ?  .... 

Society.       as  wcll  as  for  the  people,  according  to  a  distinction 
now  about  to  be  mentioned. 

20.  Sovereign  governments  have  two  ways  of  meet- 
ing dangers  of  the  kind  now  contemplated,  either 
to  incorporate  with  themselves  the  representatives  of 
the  force  or  interest  which  is  unsatisfied,  or  to  pro- 
vide for  the  satisfaction  of  this  interest  by  measures 
of  their  own.  To  these  two  modes  of  redress  for 
unsatisfied  interests  correspond  two  theories  or  sys- 
tems of  government,  to  one  or  the  other  of  which, 
or  to  a  combination  of  both,  all  actual  governments 
will  be  found  to  belong.  The  first  is  the  system  of 
government  by  as  well  as  for  the  people,  a  system 
which  in  small  states  may  take  place  by  direct  inter- 
position, as  was  the  case  at  Athens,  and  at  Rome  in 
early  times,  but  which  in  larger  countries  requires 
representatives  elected  by  the  people,  as  in  England 
and  the  United  States.  The  second  is  the  system  of 
government  by  a  person  or  group  of  persons,  as  the 
committee  of  the  people,  governing  in  the  name  and 
for  the  interests  of  all,  but  without  any  considerable 
concurrence  on  the  part  of  them  or  their  representa- 
tives ;  of  this  France  is  perhaps  the  most  prominent 
instance.  The  one  system  may  be  called,  for  brevity, 
Representative,  the  other  Imperial.  The  difiiculties 
of  the  latter  system,  compared  to  the  former,  consist 
chiefly  in  the  separation  between  government  and 
subjects,  so  that  powerful  interests  may  be  neglected, 
and  therefore  may  be  becoming  revolutionary,  with- 
out this  fact  being  attended  to  by  the  government ; 
especially  since  the  government  must  always  be  suf- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  rOLTTTC.  153 

ficiently  strong  to  repress  minor  outbreaks  of  discon-       tsook  if. 
tent :   and  then,  when  the  outbreak  itself  comes  at        -^— 

e  on 

last,  it  is  so  much  the  more  violent,  as  in  the  first   The  voluntary 

.  _  -  .  organisation  of 

French  Kevolution.  its  advantages  are  unity  and  Society. 
continuity  in  the  administration,  so  that  a  better  ad- 
ministration, a  speedier  adoption  of  beneficial  mea- 
sures, may  be  expected.  When  a  majority  drawn 
from  all  classes  and  interests  must  first  be  convinced 
of  the  justice  or  expedience  of  any  great  measure, 
it  must  usually  wait  a  far  longer  time  for  its  adop- 
tion than  when  only  a  single  man  or  a  few  men,  of 
equally  upright  intentions,  have  to  be  convinced.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  a  great  principle  once  adopted  by 
a  representative  government,  there  is  less  danger  of 
retrogression,  since  the  long  discussion  of  it  must 
have  served  to  secure  its  permanence  in  the  habitual 
opinions  of  all  the  classes  included  in  the  representa- 
tion. 

2 1 .  The  system  of  government  prevalent  in  any 
country  is  the  most  important  part  of  what  is  in- 
cluded in  the  term  Constitution.  The  physical  cir- 
cumstances, the  national  character,  the  position  rela- 
tive to  neighbouring  nations,  the  events  of  its  past 
history,  and  the  habits  of  thought,  feeling,  and  ac- 
tion, which  those  events  have  fostered,  are  the  simul- 
taneous or  successive  causes  of  the  constitution  of 
any  state,  and,  as  the  chief  part  of  the  constitution, 
of  the  system  of  government  therein  established.  To 
change  from  one  of  the  two  opposite  systems  of  go- 
vernment to  the  other  would  be,  in  most  cases,  to  run 
counter  to  the  constitution  of  the  state,  to  abandon 
its  principles  and  its  idea  ;  and,  since  habits  which 
have  taken  centuries  to  form  cannot  be  changed  in  a 
generation,  the  endeavour  to  do  so  would,  in  most 


154 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


bookil      cases,  be  to  aim  at  the  impracticable,  and  to  intro- 
—         duce  contradiction  and  anarchy  into  the  state.     Mo- 

§  89.  .  .  ,  '' 

The  voluntary   difv  the  practicc,  cni^raft  improvements,  but  maintain 

organisation  of.  ..,  ,.,7  i-ii  '         ^  o 

Society.       the  pnnciple  which  is  coeval  with  the  state  itseli. 

2  2.  It  remains  to  analyse  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment, abstracting  from  the  system  to  which  it  may 
belong.  The  spiritual  power  is  not  organised  in  the 
form  of  groups  of  men,  but  of  laws  and  ideas  ;  indi- 
viduals are  its  organs,  their  beliefs  are  its  embodi- 
ment. All  shapes  are  assumed  by  it,  all  domains 
permeated,  all  functions  performed.  No  analysis, 
no  classification,  of  its  functions  can  be  given  beyond 
the  analysis  and  classification  of  the  functions  of  the 
individual.  But  the  organ  of  the  sovereign  power 
in  a  state,  since  it  exercises  its  functions  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  separate  individuals  or  groups  to  per- 
form each  of  them,  requires  analysis  and  classification. 
This  can  be  no  other  than  that  of  the  functions  of 
voluntary  redintegration  in  the  individual;  and  for 
two  reasons ;  first,  that  nothing  else  in  the  last  resort 
can  render  the  actions  of  men  in  groups  intelligible, 
and  we  are  therefore  compelled,  for  the  sake  of  know- 
ing social  and  political  functions,  to  compare  them 
with,  and  see  what  relation  they  bear  to,  the  func- 
tions of  consciousness  ;  otherwise  they  would  be  to 
us  unreasoning  functions,  like  those  of  inanimate  ob- 
jects. And  secondly,  that,  every  action  of  a  group 
consisting  of  actions  of  the  individuals  composing  it, 
and  these  being  all  complete  actions  by  themselves, 
(see  par.  3),  there  would  be  no  sense  in  which  the 
action  of  the  group  could  be  said  to  be  a  single  vo- 
luntary action,  unless  the  actions  of  the  individuals 
composing  it  represented  each  one  element  or  strain 
of  a  single  concrete  voluntary  act,  the  other  elements 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  155 

or  strains  being  abstracted  from,  and  represented  by      book  u. 
the  actions  of  the  other  individuals.     It  is,  therefore,         -^— 

§  89. 

not  a  fanciful  analogy  between  an  individual  and  a  Thevoiuntan- 

-,.    .        1  .       ^  Ti  1  1  •    1     organisation  of 

body  politic  that  is  here  relied  on,  but  the  essential       society. 
unity  of  nature  between  the  two,  the  body  politic 
beinof  an  ao^grreo-ate  of  individuals. 

23.  It  is  clear  that  all  the  action  of  government 
is  included  in  practical  reasoning  and  the  transeunt 
actions  consequent  upon  it.  But  these  transeunt 
actions,  strictly  taken,  are  not  the  objects  of  our 
enquiry.  It  is  not  the  action  of  muscle  on  pens  and 
paper,  telegraphs,  steam  engines,  guns,  and  so  on, 
that  is  the  object  of  discussion.  This  action  enters 
into  practical  reasoning  and  into  the  action  of  go- 
vernment only  so  far  as  it  is  known,  that  is,  as  an 
object  of  reasoning;  the  actions  themselves  are  events 
in  the  domain  of  physical  science.  It  is  the  reason- 
ing process  itself,  as  the  determinant  of  these  known 
events,  which  we  have  to  do  with.  If  then  we  turn 
to  the  analysis  of  practical  reasoning  given  in  §  56. 
6,  we  find  it  thus  distributed : 

[Teleological. 


Practical  reasoning. 


/Judgment.      ^^^^^.^^^ 


iPassion. 


Now  all  judgment  is,  as  shown  in  §§  54-56,  a  balance 
of  interests.  If  the  feelings  are  preponderant  over 
the  intellect,  the  balance  is  struck  by  the  prepon- 
derating feeling,  and  the  action  is  one  of  passion ;  if 
the  intellect  preponderates,  the  act  is  one  of  judg- 
ment. But  in  a  group  of  men  deliberating  about  a 
common  course  of  action,  the  feelings  are  represented 
by  individuals ;  each  individual  becomes  the  organ 


156  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      of  an  interest ;  and  there  may  be  interests  of  intellect 
-^— "       or  iud2:ment,   as  well  as  interests  of  feelins:.     The 

§  89.  J        &  ^  5  ^  ^  ^     & 

The  voluntary  balance  of  intercsts  determines  the  decision  of  the 

organisation  of  -,..,.- 

Society.  group ;  and  it  is  plain  that  one  or  more  interests  may 
be  so  strongly  felt  as  to  carry  all  before  them,  over- 
powering the  interests  of  judgment.  In  this  case 
the  act  of  the  group  will  be  an  act  of  passion ;  in 
the  opposite  case,  one  of  judgment.  But  there  is  no 
function  set  apart  for  acts  of  passion  in  government, 
since  it  is  recognised  as  what  it  is,  a  weakness  and 
an  evil  in  a  deliberating  group  to  be  carried  away 
by  passion,  which  is  only  too  likely  to  manifest  itself, 
without  artificial  aid.  The  only  functions  established 
in  government  are  the  two  functions  of  judgment, 
judgment  of  ends,  and  judgment  of  means  to  ends 
already  determined  ;  teleological  and  effective  judg- 
ment. The  boundaries  of  these  two  functions  may 
be  differently  drawn,  in  respect  to  the  acts  and  ob- 
jects included  in  them ;  but  the  division  will  always 
be  made  at  this  point,  always  fall  between  acts  and 
objects  considered  as  ends  and  acts  and  objects  con- 
sidered as  means.  That  is  to  say,  the  only  ultimate 
division  of  the  functions  of  government  is  into  legis- 
lative and  executive  functions.  The  same  persons 
may,  it  is  true,  often  be  found  uniting  both  functions, 
but  the  functions  are  nevertheless  distinct;  and  it  is 
a  maxim  of  sound  i)olicy,  at  least  in  all  states  organ- 
ised on  the  principle  of  government  by  as  well  as 
for  the  people,  that  these  functions,  and  the  judicial 
function  as  well,  should  be  kept  in  separate  hands. 
See  The  Federalist,  Nos.  47  to  51  inclusive. 

24.  The  judicial  function  is  properly  a  branch, 
though  a  most  important  branch,  of  the  executive. 
It  is  the  application  and  enforcement  of  the  laws 


THE  LOGIC  OF  rOLITIC. 


157 


made  by  the  leo;islative :  but  it  is  a  function  of  rea-       book  n. 
•^  ch.  ni. 

soninsf  and  of  iudo-ment,  discriminatino;  what  cases         — 

really  fall  under  particular  laws,  what  laws  are  ap-    Thevoiuntan- 

,.,,  .,  ,...,  organisation  of 

j^licable  to  particular  cases  ;  and,  m  civil  matters.  Society. 
what  the  claims  of  two  or  more  suitors  are,  under 
the  provisions  of  established  law.  The  functions  of 
the  executive  not  included  in  the  judicial  may  pro- 
perly be  called  administrative ;  they  consist  in  giving 
the  orders  requisite  to  carry  out  the  ends,  the  modi- 
fication of  the  old  laws,  determined  by  the  legislative, 
and  in  appointing  officers  to  fulfil  these  orders.  The 
collecting  and  disbursement  of  the  revenue,  the  sup- 
port and  direction  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  of  sub- 
ordinate governors  generally,  form  the  largest  part 
if  not  the  whole  of  these  functions.  The  table  of 
functions  of  government,  then,  stands  thus : 


Functions  of  Government. 


/  Legislative. 


.  (Judicial. 

VExecutive.     j 

(Administrative. 


25.  Leaving  the  judicial  function  of  government 
to  find  its  place  in  the  following  §,  the  action  of  the 
legislative  and  administrative  functions  must  be  here 
considered.  This  is  in  reality  nothing  more  than 
a  continuation  of  the  same  action  which  we  have 
hitherto  been  analysing ;  the  course  taken  by  the 
government  when  formed  is,  like  its  formation,  de- 
termined by  the  conflict  of  interests  and  the  prepon- 
derance of  one  or  some  amonof  them.  x\nd  this  is 
true  under  both  systems.  Imperial  as  well  as  Repre- 
sentative. 

26.  This  may  be  shown  from  passages  in  the  his- 
tory of  France,  in  respect  to  the  former,  the  imperial. 


158 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  il      svstem  of  2:overnment.    The  line  distino-uishino;  legis- 

Ch.  III.  ^  o  o  o       o 

—         lative  from  administrative  functions  is  a  varvins:  one: 
The  voluntary   administration  being  the  carrying  out  aims  already 

organisation  of  r\  ^        \'  /•  x  i       • 

Society,  clioscn,  or  tlic  adaptmg  or  means  to  ends  m  govern- 
ment, measures  which  in  one  country  are  classed  as 
legislative  in  another  will  be  classed  as  administra- 
tive, and  conversely.  The  system  of  government  for 
but  not  by  the  people  has  the  necessary  consequence 
of  making  almost  all  measures  appear  administrative, 
all  measures,  that  is,  which  do  not  make  a  change  in 
the  main  functions  of  the  sovereign  itself  In  govern- 
ment by  as  well  as  for  the  people,  on  the  other  hand, 
many  most  minute  regulations  are  classed  as  legisla- 
tive, the  administration  being  confined  to  their  actual 
carrying  out,  by  appointment  of  subordinate  officers, 
and  by  directing  their  conduct  in  detail.  English 
Acts  of  Parliament,  for  instance,  often  contain  a  mass 
of  minute  regulations,  which  in  France  are  matters 
of  administration.  Acts  of  Parliament  are  our  Bur- 
eaux. 

27.  This  premised,  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  in- 
fluence which  parties  or  interests  exert  in  effecting  a 
change  of  measures  must  be  exerted,  in  the  one  case 
within  the  legislative 'body,  in  the  other  upon  the 
administrative  body  and  from  without  it.  This  lat- 
ter mode  of  action  is  seen  in  the  history  of  the  early 
States  General  in  France.  M.  Aug.  Thierry  in  his  Es- 
sai  sur  I'Histoire  clu  Tiers  Etat,  Chap,  ii.,  having  given 
an  account  of  the  States  General  of  1355  and  1356,  of 
the  resolutions  passed  by  them  and  accepted  by  the 
king,  and  of  the  speedy  dissolution  of  their  power; 
and  having  pointed  out  that  this  was  the  moment 
from  which  the  social  history  of  France,  complete  in 
its  elements,  flows  forward  in  a  single  stream;  pro- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  159 

ceeds  thus :  "  VoiKi  pour  la  societe ;  quant  aux  insti-  book  it. 
tutions,  la  royaute,  dans  sa  prerogative  sans  limites,  -^— ' 
les  recouvre  et  les  embrasse  toutes,  hors  une  seule,    The  voluntary 

-,,  ,,  1,1  •  ii'<^'  1  organisation  of 

les  etats  generaux,  dont  ie  pouvon'  mai  denni,  ombre  Society. 
de  la  souverainete  nationale,  apparait  dans  les  temps 
de  crise  pour  condamner  le  mal  present  et  frayer  la 
route  du  bien  a  venir.  De  1^55  a  1789,  les  etats, 
quoique  rarement  assembles,  quoique  sans  action  re- 
guliere  sur  le  gouvernement,  ont  joue  un  role  consi- 
derable comme  organe  de  I'opinion  publique." 

28.  Another  instance  to  the  same  elFect  is  found 

in  the  joint  action  taken  by  the  University  and  the 

Municipality  of  Paris,  in  the  year  1413,  and  their 

forcing  from  the  king  the   Ordonnance  of  May  25. 

In  three  months  the  Ordonnance  was  annulled.     M. 

Thierry,  having  given  the  account  of  these  events,  in 

Chap,  iii.,  says  at  page  70,  speaking  of  the  language 

held  by  the   j\iunicipality,    "  C'etaient  la  de  nobles 

paroles  dignes  d'annoncer  la  grande  charte  de  reforme, 

oeuvre  commune  du  corps  de  Ville  et  de  I'Universite; 

mais,  cette  loi  administrative  de  la  vieille  France,  il 

se  trouva  des  hommes  pour  la  concevoir,  il  ne  s'en 

trouva  point  pour  I'executer  et  la  maintenir.      Les 

gens  sages  et  rompus  aux  affaires  n'avaient  alors  ni 

volonte  ni  energie  politique."    But  these  efforts  were 

not  without  their  effect ;  the  substance  of  the  reforms 

demanded  and  prepared  by  these  efforts  of  public 

opinion  was  realised  later  by  the  ministers  of  Charles 

VII.,  taken  for  the  most  part  from  the  Tiers  Etat. 

"L'esprit   de  reforme   et   de   progres  qui,   en   1413, 

avait  brille   un  instant    et  n'avait   pu    rien  fonder, 

parce  qu'un  parti  extreme  en  etait  I'organe,  reparut, 

et  modela  sur  un  plan  nouveau  toute  I'administra- 

tion  du  royaume,  les  finances,  Tarmee,  la  justice  et 


160  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

BooKiL      la,  police  generale."  page  74.      The  ordonnances  to 
— -         which  M.    Thierry  here   refers  date  from   1439   to 

§  89.  »' 

The  voiuntar.v    1460,  the  vcar  before  the  accession  of  Louis  XL 

organisation  of  *' 

Society.  29.   Turning  now  to  the  case  of  government  on 

the  representative  system,  the  debates  and  conflicts 
upon  public  measures  are  subject  to  the  same  law; 
that  is,  their  issue  is  determined  by  the  strength  of 
conflicting  interests.  Take  for  instance  a  question 
of  the  present  day,  which  perhaps  is  not  even  yet 
finally  decided,  the  question  of  appointment  to  oflices 
by  competitive  examination.  Examination  was  the 
interest  of  the  increasing  middle  class,  patronage  of 
the  class  already  in  possession  of  the  appointments. 
Discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  two  systems  was  the 
mode  in  which  the  strength  of  the  two  interests  was 
tried.  Each  party  tries  to  make  out  a  case;  each, 
party  is  convinced  of  the  merits  of  its  own  case ;  the 
triumph  of  the  strongest  interest  is  apparently  the 
triumph  of  reason  and  of  the  true  merits,  just  as  the 
conflict  of  interests  is  apparently  a  conflict  of  argu- 
ments. But  why  this  distinction  into  real  and  ap- 
parent, real  motive  and  apparent  discussion  ?  For 
the  same  reason  that  each  interest  is  reasonable  in 
the  eyes  of  the  person  feeling  it,  namely,  that  every 
emotion  has  its  inseparable  framework,  and  that  com- 
munication between  individuals  by  words  is  a  com- 
parison of  frameworks.  But  while  we  insist  on  this 
logic  for  all  cases  of  debate  between  parties,  while 
we  look  upon  parliament,  for  instance,  as  the  arena 
for  trying  the  strength  of  interests  much  more  than 
for  weiffhins:  reasons,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
one  important  element  in  the  strength  of  every  inter- 
est is  the  reasonableness  of  its  framework,  its  prov- 
able conduciveness  to  the  general  benefit.     To  fail  in 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


IGl 


"  making 


out  the  case"  is  to  palsy  the  strength  of 
the  interest,  because  the  interest  is  thus  shown  to 
be  incompatible  with  the  interest  of  the  country.  It 
becomes  less  honourable  to  maintain  it ;  its  supporters 
diminish  both  in  number  and  in  vigour;  and  the  vic- 
tory remains  with  its  opponents. 

30.  It  is  requisite  in  the  next  place  to  examine 
the  groundwork  of  a  phenomenon  which  is  found 
in  the  political  action  of  all  free  nations,  the  general 
distinction  into  and  opposition  between  two  political 
parties,  under  whatever  names  they  may  appear,  the 
party  of  conservation  and  that  of  progress,  the  right 
and  the  left  in  political  assemblies.  Whatever  may 
be  the  particular  interests,  represented  by  particular 
parties  or  groups,  these  are  all  pervaded  by,  and  have 
a  constant  tendency  to  group  themselves  under,  two 
general  directions,  one  which  presses  for  advance, 
innovation,  or  improvement,  the  other  which  resists 
and  criticises  all  such  attempts.  What  are  the  ulti- 
mate causes  of  this  phenomenon  ? 

3 1 .  The  first  and  most  obvious  cause  is  the  na- 
tural alliance  between  interests  which  have  already 
obtained  a  position  in  the  state,  as  established  inter- 
ests, between  the  various  satisfied  classes,  ae:ainst  an 
alliance  equally  natural  between  interests  and  classes 
which  are  as  yet  inadequately  established  and  satis- 
fied. This  forms  the  groundwork  and  nucleus  of  the 
two  parties  round  which  individuals  rally,  according 
as  their  personal  interests  lead  them.  The  attractive 
influence  of  the  conservative  party  is  exercised  on 
individuals  by  their  finding  a  personal  career  open 
to  them  in  business  or  in  professions  as  they  are 
at  any  present  time  constituted ;  their  attention  is 
turned  away  from  political  improvements,  and  fixed 

VOL.  II.  M 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 

§89. 

The  voluntary 

organisation  of 

Society. 


1G2  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Bookil      upon  the  means  of  makino^  the  best  they  can  for 

Oh.  IIL  .         . 

-^—  '       themselves  of  institutions  as  they  are.     Those  on  the 
The  voluntary   Other  hand  who  find  a  less  satisfactory  personal  career 

organisation  of    •.,.,,•  ,,  1      4.  I,  4.T,  • 

Society.  lu  mstitutious  as  they  are  seek  to  change  them  m 
those  points  where  they  are  most  incommoded,  and 
thus  gravitate  to  the  party  of  progress.  This  is  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  mode  of  formation  of  the 
two  parties.  But  there  are  other  members  belong- 
ing to  each  who  have,  as  it  were,  taken  service  with 
them,  making  political  action  with  one  or  the  other 
party  their  profession,  and  seeking  to  advance  in  their 
personal  career  by  means  of  the  political  services 
which  they  render  to  their  party.  They  are  a  kind 
of  Condottieri  of  political  warfare ;  except  that  they 
rarely  change  their  side. 

32.  But  the  formation  of  the  two  parties  is  not 
yet  fully  described.  The  main  line  between  them  is 
drawn  by  satisfied  and  unsatisfied  interests ;  but  with 
this  line  coincides  another  of  an  entirely  different 
character.  This  is  the  distinction  between  the  two 
intellectual  dispositions,  active  and  sluggish,  drawn 
in  §  62.  Intellects  that  are  naturally  active  are  al- 
ways in  practical  matters  on  the  look-out  for  im- 
provements, always  suggesting  some  change,  always 
aiming  at  some  end.  These  fall  naturally  into  the 
party  of  progress,  unless  either  their  aims,  being 
mamly  personal,  are  satisfied  by  institutions  as  they 
are,  or  their  affections  are  already  engaged  in  favour 
of  some  great  public  interest  already  established  ;  in 
neither  of  which  cases  is  their  intellectual  activity 
directed  to  political  improvement.  An  active  intel- 
lect, when  unbiassed  by  personal  ambition  and  un- 
occvipied  by  a  special  party  object,  and  thus  set  free 
to  aim  at  the  general  public  advantage,  becomes  as  a 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  IG 


q 


rule,  and  with  the  exception  stated  in  the  foUowino;      book  n. 

.  Ch.  III. 

par.,  a  member  of  the  party  of  progress.     The  active         —  ' 
intellects  which  belong  to  the  conservative  party  are,    The  voiuntarj- 
as  a  rule,  intellects  whose  activity  is  not  directed  to   ""^"socTety. 
the  general  improvement  of  the  nation,  the   special 
aim  of  politic,  but  to  some  minor  purpose  which  is 
subordinate  and  may  become  obstructive.     The  slug- 
gish intellects  on  the  other  hand  fall  naturally  into 
the  party  of  conservation,  from  the  mere  force  which 
is  exercised  over  them  by  habitual  images  and  esta- 
blished ways  of  thought. 

;^2.  But  the  formation  of  the  two  parties  is  not 
even  yet  quite  exhausted;  a  further  distinction  is 
observable  between  them;  and  it  must  be  remarked 
that  each  distinction,  being  a  distinction  between 
traits  of  character,  is  a  distinction  of  motives,  that 
is,  of  the  motives  which  may  lead  particular  persons 
to  belong  to  either  party.  Within  the  active  intel- 
lectual disposition  there  are  two  modes  of  thought, 
described  in  §  63  under  the  names  of  the  constructive 
and  the  accumulative ;  the  former  of  these  gravitates 
to  conservatism,  from  the  wide,  organising,  statical, 
view  of  political  action  which  is  natural  to  it ;  the 
latter  to  liberalism,  from  the  equally  natural  desire 
to  keep  constantly  aiming  at  the  next  improvement 
in  prospect.  Only  the  elite  of  the  conservative  party 
become  conservatives  from  possessing  this  construc- 
tive tendency  of  thought ;  but  it  is  the  bulk  of  the 
liberals,  of  those  at  least  who  belong  to  the  satisfied 
classes,  that  is  probably  drawn  to  the  liberal  party 
by  the  prevalence  of  the  accumulative.  At  the  same 
time,  this  distinction  affords  an  explanation  of  the 
often  observed  fact,  that  liberals  themselves  tend  to 
become  conservative  with  increasing  experience;   a 


164  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL      circumstance  which   cannot  be  entu'ely  and  in  all 
Ch  ni 
—  '       cases  explained  by  the  cooling  of  youthful  enthusi- 

The  voluntary  Esm,  OT  by  the  increasing  dominion  of  habit.     It  is 

organisation  of  ,.^  ^'  n  -i  t  1   '     J 

bociety.  a  very  dinerent  conservatism  trom  the  ordmary  Kina 
which  is  either  founded  upon  constructive  modes  of 
thought,  or  which,  being  so  founded,  has  taken  up 
liberalism  into  its  own  nature.  Mere  conservatism 
has  no  ideal  but  order,  mere  liberalism  none  but  pro- 
gress. A  certain  union  and  interpenetration  of  both, 
whichever  of  the  two  name?  it  may  bear,  an  union 
which  has  for  its  ideal  both  ends  in  combination,  is 
requisite  for  perfect  statesmanship;  but  such  states- 
manship would  with  difficulty  win  the  appreciation 
of  a  popular  assembly. 

34.  Finally  must  be  considered  what  may  be  called 
perhaps  the  vital  principle  of  nations,  that  which  de- 
termines, or  to  which  is  attached,  their  rise,  progress, 
and  decay.  The  life  of  nations  has  been  often  com- 
pared to  the  life  of  animal  or  vegetable  organisms ; 
a  most  misleading  comparison.  It  is  rather  to  the 
life  of  character  in  individuals,  the  rise,  progress, 
and  decline,  of  the  functions  analysed  in  Book  i. 
Chap,  iv.,  that  the  life  of  nations  should  be  com- 
pared. We  have  seen  in  that  Chapter  the  import- 
ance to  the  individual  of  what  was  called  a  career, 
§  72 ;  the  same  circumstance  is  all-important  to  na- 
tions, in  order  not  mdeecl  to  the  existence  of  a 
national  life,  but  to  its  being  a  healthy  and  vigorous 
one.  As  the  character  of  an  individual  rises  and 
expands  with  the  aims  which  he  sets  before  his  am- 
bition, and  declines  in  energy  and  dignity  when,  from 
whatever  cause,  no  purpose  worth  living  for  remains 
to  him,  so  a  healthy  national  life  is  first  kindled  by 
the  perception  of  some  great  national  purpose,  is  kept 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  165 


alive  at  its  different  stasres  by  the  unfoldiiio;  of  some      book  il 

Ch.  III. 

new  sroal  to  be   reached,  and  declines  when,  from         -^— 

.        .  .         .  .        .  §  89. 

causes  either  in  its  own  organisation  or  in  its  rela-   The  voluntary 

,  .  T     '  r        1  •        organisation  of 

tion  to  the  nations  around  it,  no  further  prospect  is       Society. 
opened  which  as  a  nation  it  can  hope  to  realise. 

35.  It  is  not  only  in  nations  that  this  law  holds 
good;  every  group  voluntarily  formed  is  governed 
by  it.  As  shown  in  parr.  1-3,  every  organised  group 
or  party  is  formed  for  a  certain  end  or  purpose ;  the 
common  end  brings  its  members  together  into  a  group 
and  determines  its  constitution ;  the  end  attained  or 
proved  to  be  unattainable,  the  group  dissolves;  the 
end  modified  or  supplanted  by  a  new  end  requires 
the  group  to  be  differently  organised.  A  career  pro- 
portioned to  their  powers  is  therefore  all-important 
for  the  healthy  vitality  of  societies,  large  or  small ; 
a  society  outliving  or  renouncing  its  general  aim  as 
a  collective  society  becomes  eo  ipso  disorganised,  a 
mere  congeries  of  minor  societies,  groups,  or  even 
individuals,  living  for  their  minor  or  even  only  for 
their  personal  aims ;  the  power  of  the  nation  is  then 
exerted  merely  to  secure  the  enjoyment  of  its  several 
members,  the  classes  or  individuals  who  compose  it. 
And  according  to  the  strength  and  permanence  of 
the  old  organisation,  supposing  it  incapable  of  find- 
ing a  new  career  on  the  exhaustion  of  its  old  one, 
will  be  its  force  in  repressing  the  formation  of  new 
organs  informed  with  new  life. 

36.  It  is  seldom  that  nations  have  no  career  open 
which  a  bystander  can  discern;  the  difficulty  is  for 
them  to  find  one  proportioned  to  their  forces,  one 
which  sufficient  numbers  of  the  nation  can  discern 
and  organise  themselves  to  attain.  The  only  career 
offered  may  be  beyond  their  powers  either  of  appre- 


166  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  il  ciatioii  or  of  volition ;  that  is,  they  may  want  states- 
— -  '  men  to  discern  it,  or  spontaneous  forces  of  which 
The  voluntary  statcsmcn  Can  disposc.  The  struggle  for  existence 
''Society.  in  early  stages  of  national  life,  and  in  later  the  am- 
bition of  conquest  or  of  commerce,  compel  a  nation 
to  put  forth  its  powers  of  endurance  and  activity; 
it  is  when  a  career  is  no  longer  forced  upon  it  by 
circumstances,  but  must  be  adopted  if  at  all  by  an 
effort  of  will,  that  the  great  trial  comes  whether  the 
nation  can  renew  its  youth,  or  whether  the  elements 
of  the  next  stage  of  history  will  spring  out  of  its 
dissolution.  Rome,  for  instance,  was  unequal  to  the 
great  career  which  her  conquests  had  oj)ened  for  her, 
the  career  of  incorporating  into  an  organic  whole  the 
nations  included  in  her  empire.  She  perceived  and 
attempted  the  task,  but  failed  to  cope  with  it  owing 
to  the  advancing  decay  of  her  internal  organisation ; 
and,  on  the  dissolution  of  the  Empire,  a  society, 
foreign  to  the  state,  but  which  had  silently  grown 
up  as  an  imperium  in  imperio  within  its  limits,  the 
Christian  Church,  was  found  alone  occupying  a  suit- 
able position,  and  possessed  of  sufficient  strength,  to 
take  up  the  glorious  and  difficult  inheritance. 

37.  Nations  count  their  age  not  by  ancestry  but 
from  the  era  of  their  foundation ;  from  the  time  when 
they  have  shaken  themselves  free  from  the  organisa- 
tion of  the  past,  and  laid  new  bases  for  the  future, 
that  is,  when  they  have  entered  on  a  new  career. 
The  United  States  of  America,  though  inheriting  the 
experience  of  England,  are  a  young  nation  because 
entering  on  a  new  career,  with  institutions  framed 
in  anticipation  of  it.  To  organise  the  Union  is  the 
career  immediately  before  her.  India  may  one  day 
spring  to  a  new  national  life  from  an  impulse  re- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC, 


IC 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IIL 


§89. 

The  voluntary 

organisation  of 

Society. 


of  Law. 


ceived  from  her  British  conquerors.  The  states  of 
Western  Europe  may  open  for  themselves  a  new 
career  by  the  attempt  to  combine  into  one  great  re- 
public, according  to  Auguste  Comte's  magnificent  con- 
ception. Wherever  a  new  career  is  entered  on  by 
a  nation,  there  a  new  organisation  arises,  a  new  life 
begins,  and  the  powers  of  all  its  members  are  braced 
by  the  reaction,  and  strung  to  loftier  effort. 

§  90.   I.  It  is  requisite  in  the  next  place  to  at-         g9o. 

.  I       t        •  f         •  f   T  •         ir  Analysis  and 

tempt  the  general  classification  of  Law  itseli,  con-  classification 
sidered  as  the  body  of  commands  imposed  by  the 
sovereign  on  the  people  of  a  sovereign  state.  The 
formation  of  the  sovereign  and  its  organisation,  its 
gradual  development  out  of  the  spontaneous  forces 
of  society,  have  been  already  given ;  and  it  has  been 
shown  generally  in  what  manner  a  Constitution  is 
formed,  pari  passu  with  this  development,  of  which 
in  fact  it  is  the  law  or  method.  The  classification 
of  the  positive  law  of  a  state,  in  relation  to  the  organ 
imposing  and  the  groups  or  individuals  obeying  it, 
will  complete  the  sketch  of  the  whole  subject.  Law 
generally,  being  command  of  transeunt  or  overt  ac- 
tion, is  first  distinguishable  into  commands  of  perfect 
and  commands  of  imperfect  obligation  or  enforce- 
ment. The  former  alone  are  positive  law.  Consti- 
tutional law,  which  is  well  called  by  Austin  positive 
constitutional  morality,  being  enforced  solely  by  pub- 
lic opinion  both  on  sovereign  and  on  people,  is  a  part 
of  the  latter.  International  law  is  another  branch 
of  commands  of  imperfect  enforcement ;  and  both 
together  are  excluded  from  positive  law,  which  alone 
is  now  to  be  examined.  (See  §  89.  9-ii)-  When 
the  sovereign  actually  and  habitually  enforces  obli- 
gations which  would  otherwise  belong  to  constitu- 


168 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


tional  or  international  law,  they  become  eo  ipso  parts 
of  positive  law,  having  thenceforward  a  perfect  obli- 
gation or  sanction.  The  increasing  enforcement  of 
constitutional  and  international  laws  by  sovereigns 
is  one  process  by  which  morality  increases  its  do- 
minion, by  transformation  into  positive  law,  by  laying 
behind  it  in  its  progress  a  field  where  its  dictates  are 
now  enforced  by  sanctions;  while  the  increasing  con- 
formity to  constitutional  and  international  law  on  the 
part  of  sovereigns,  in  obedience  solely  to  public  opi- 
nion, without  giving  them  a  positive  and  habitual 
sanction,  is  a  recognition  that  there  is  a  moral  above 
any  legal  code,  a  spiritual  above  the  sovereign  power ; 
being  in  fact  a  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  Law 
itself,  in  its  widest  sense,  as  the  true  sovereign,  in- 
stead of  the  personal  organs  who  are  from  time  to 
time  its  ministers. 

2.  Constitutional  and  International  law  thus  ex- 
cluded from  the  survey,  the  question  arises,  in  what 
way  to  classify  the  commands,  that  is,  the  acts  and 
forbearances  commanded  by  positive  law.  In  the 
first  place,  every  command  imposes  a  duty  or  obliga- 
tion on  the  person  or  persons  to  whom  it  is  directed; 
and  the  person  or  persons  towards  whom  the  duty 
or  obligation  is  to  be  performed  are  invested  with 
a  corresponding  right.  The  acts  and  forbearances 
commanded  by  law  are  duties  in  the  persons  on 
whom,  rights  in  the  persons  towards  whom,  they 
are  imposed.  The  question  is,  whether  to  seek  the 
principle  of  a  first  classification  in  the  nature  of  the 
acts  and  forbearances  themselves,  or  in  their  incid- 
ence, that  is,  in  the  classes  of  persons  on  whom  or 
towards  whom  they  are  commanded.  This  requires 
some  preliminary  observations. 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


169 


3,  There  is  no  more  philosophical  suggestion  in 
Auo-uste  Comte's  writino;s  than  that  in  which  he 
urges,  that  Law  should  be  approached  and  its  object- 
matter  arranged  from  the  point  of  view  of  duties, 
and  not  from  that  of  rights.  (Cours  de  Phil.  Pos. 
Le9on  Ivii.  Yol.  vi.  p.  454,  ed.  1864.)  And  this  is 
entirely  in  harmony  with  a  dictum  of  Austin,  whose 
invaluable  work  on  Jurisprudence  has  given  me  the 
clue  to  all  that  I  may  be  enabled  here  to  advance. 
In  a  marginal  note  printed  at  page  485,  Vol.  ii.  he 
says :  "  Law  (or  the  Science  of  Law — Jurisprudence) 
cannot  be  expounded  without  dividing  it  into  parts. 
The  division  most  in  use  is  founded  upon  an  enumer- 
ation of  the  several  sorts  of  Rights;  but,  inasmuch 
as  right  correlates  with  obligation,  an  enumeration 
of  the  several  sorts  of  Obligations  would  be  just  as 
good  a  basis  for  a  division.  Both  Right  and  Obliga- 
tion (i.e.  legal  right  and  obligation)  being  creatures 
of  Law,  the  notion  of  Law  (or  of  a  politically  sanc- 
tioned Rule)  ought  to  be  placed  in  front  (or  to  be 
made  the  punctum  saliens)  of  a  division." 

4.  Law,  then,  by  one  and  the  same  command  im- 
posing duties  on  one  person  and  conferring  rights  on 
another,  it  is  open  to  us  to  consider  it  as  consisting 
either  of  a  collection  of  duties  or  of  a  collection  of 
rights.  It  will  be  shown  farther  on,  that  the  former 
method  alone  has  the  advantao;e  of  harmonising;  law 
with  ethic  in  a  single  logical  system,  (par.  53),  and 
so  is  to  be  preferred  on  that  ground;  but  the  prefer- 
ence may  also  be  justified  on  grounds  more  decisive. 
Rights,  as  Comte  clearly  saw,  cannot  be  taken  as 
ultimate  or  indecomposable  phenomena  in  law;  they 
require,  because  they  admit,  analysis;  and  this  ana- 
lysis is  into  the  duties,  the  acts  or  forbearances,  im- 


IJOOK  TI, 

cii.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


170 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classificatioa 

of  Law. 


posed  on  other  persons,  the  claim  to  which  consti- 
tutes the  rights.  In  order  to  define  any  person's 
right,  recourse  must  be  had  to  the  acts  or  forbear- 
ances imposed  on  other  persons.  Names  of  rights 
are  "  second  intentions,"  the  "  first  intentions"  of 
which  are  the  duties  into  which  they  are  analysable. 
To  take  rights  and  not  the  corresponding  duties  as 
the  ultimate  phenomena  of  law  is  to  stop  short  of  a 
complete  analysis,  and  to  make  "  entities  of  abstrac- 
tions." 

5.  That  Comte  was  correct  in  referring  the  con- 
ception of  rights  to  that  of  will  (Politique  Pos.  Vol.  ii. 
Ch.  i.  p.  87),  is  made  evident  by  the  following  pass- 
age in  von  Savigny's  great  work,  the  System  des 
heutigen  Romischen  Rechts,  Book  ii.  §  52 :  "  Von 
dem  nun  gewonnenen  Standpunkt  aus  erscheint  uns 
jedes  einzelne  Rechtsverhaltniss  als  eine  Beziehung 
zwischen  Person  und  Person,  durch  eine  Rechtsregel 
bestimmt.  Diese  Bestimmung  durch  eine  Rechts- 
regel besteht  aber  darin,  dass  dem  individuellen 
Willen  ein  Gebiet  angewiesen  ist,  in  welchem  er  unab- 
hangig  von  jedem  fremden  Willen  zu  herrschen  hat." 
And  again  in  §  53,  in  arguing  against  the  admission 
into  law  of  the  so-called  Urrecht,  or  Rights  of  Man, 
he  says :  "  indem  z.  b.  Eigenthum  und  Obligationen 
nur  Bedeutung  und  Werth  fiir  uns  haben  als  kiinst- 
liche  Erweiterung  unsrer  eignen  personlichen  Krafte, 
als  neue  Organe,  die  unserm  Naturwesen  kiinstlich 
hinzugefiigt  werden."  The  conception  of  duties  being 
a  further  analysis  and  explication  of  the  correspond- 
ing rights  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him. 
He  argues  indeed  against  basing  Jurisprudence  upon 
the  conception  of  Wrongs,  or  violation  of  rights,  which 
he  truly  says  would  be  beginning  with  a  negative  no- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  171 

tion,  with  one  which  presupposes  the  positive  notion      book  ir. 
of  rights  capable  of  violation.     But  if  the  conception         —  ' 
of  rights  is  logically  prior  to  that  of  wrongs,  so  also    Analysis'  and 
that  of  duties  is  logically  prior  to  that  of  rights  ;    ^  "of  Law.'"" 
duties  offer  a  deeper  foundation  as  well  as  a  more 
complete  analysis.     If  legal  commands  are  to  be  our 
"  punctum  saliens,"  rights  are  conferred  only  by  com- 
manding duties ;  duties  are  commanded  immediately, 
rights  derivatively ;  and  to  know  what  are  the  rights  of 
one  person  you  must  ask  what  are  the  duties  of  other 
persons,  for  the  rights  have  no  other  definition. 

6.  So  far  then  is  made  good  ;  the  acts  and  for-  ruLiic  Law. 
bearances  commanded  are  to  be  considered  as  duties, 
not  as  rights.  But  this  does  not  help  us  to  distin- 
guish duties  from  each  other,  or  to  arrange  them 
into  classes.  To  do  this  it  is  requisite  to  attend  to 
the  persons  commanding  and  the  persons  commanded. 
This  will  afford  at  least  a  primary  division  of  laws, 
the  members  of  which  may  then  be  examined  afresh 
for  further  distinctions.  Looking  back  to  the  history 
of  law,  it  is  found  to  arise  from  the  combination  of 
the  sense  of  justice  with  a  de  facto  power  enforcing 
it;  (see  §  33.  2).  But  wherever  there  is  such  a  de 
facto  power  there  is  a  virtual  sovereign  ;  and  the 
two  most  elementary  kinds  of  justice  we  can  imagine 
are,  therefore,  that  which  the  sovereign  enforces  on 
individuals  towards  itself,  and  that  which  it  enforces 
on  individuals  towards  each  other.  Accordingly  we 
have  two  main  branches  of  positive  law : 

1.  Obligations  towards  the  State,  called  State 

or  Public  Law. 

2.  Obligations   of  private  individuals  towards 

individuals,  called  Civil  or  Private  Law. 


172 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Public  Law. 


7.  The  persons  towards  whom  the  obligations  are 
imposed  are  thus  the  ground  of  our  primary  distinc- 
tion. But,  inasmuch  as  the  infrino-ement  of  oblio-a- 
tions  is  visited  with  penalties,  which  are  the  sanction 
of  the  oblio-ations,  each  class  of  oblio-ations  brino-s 
with  it  a  class  of  penalties  ;  or  in  other  words,  the 
class  of  penalties  depends  on  the  class  of  obligations. 
"  The  difference  between  Crimes  and  Civil  Injuries, 
is  not  to  be  sought  for  in  a  supposed  difference  be- 
tween their  tendencies,  but  in  the  modes  wherein  they 
are  respectively  pursued,  or  wherein  the  sanction  is 
applied  in  the  two  cases,"  says  Austin,  Vol.  ii.  Lect. 
xvii.  Yet  this  is  not  precisely  true,  in  mv  opinion ; 
it  is  not  the  mode  in  which  the  injuries  are  pursued, 
or  in  which  the  sanction  is  applied,  but  the  persons 
towards  whom  the  obligations  are  enforced  by  the 
sanctions,  which  is  the  circumstance  distinguishing 
the  commands  of  criminal  or  public  from  the  com- 
mands of  civil  law.  It  is  because  the  persons  are 
different  that  the  modes  of  pursuit  and  punishment 
are  so.  The  sovereign  is  invested  with  the  persona 
of  the  community  at  large,  and  the  rights  which  be- 
long to  the  community,  or  the  duties  owed  to  the 
community  by  individuals,  are  coincident  with  those 
obligations,  those  acts  and  forbearances,  which  the 
sovereign  enforces  towards  itself.  So  far  from  re- 
garding, with  Austin,  absolute  obligations  as  obliga- 
tions without  correlative  rights  (Lect.  xvii.  Vol.  ii.), 
I  hold  that  these  obligations  are  correlative  with 
rights  in  the  sovereign  as  the  representative  of  the 
whole  community,  being  obligations  imposed  towards 
as  well  as  by  the  sovereign;  and  am  thus  enabled  to 
reject  this  apparent  exception  to  the  otherwise  com- 
jilete  correlation  between  rights  and  duties.     Since 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


173 


Book  II. 
Oil.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


all  laws  enforce  overt  acts  by  positive  sanctions,  and 
all  aim  at  some  benefit,  the  person  benefited  by  the 
law  must  necessarily  be  invested  with  a  right.  He 
may  choose  to  fi)rego  the  benefit,  but  he  cannot  help 
beino;  clothed  with  the  rio;ht.  The  reason  which  for-  Public  Law, 
bids  us  to  attribute  legal  duties,  in  the  strict  sense, 
to  the  sovereign,  namely,  the  inefiiciency  of  a  merely 
self-inflicted  sanction,  does  not  apply  to  legal  rights. 
The  sovereign  is  the  source  of  all  obligations,  and 
therefore  those  which  it  imposes  on  itself  are  merely 
moral,  or  of  imperfect  enforcement ;  but  those  which 
it  imposes  on  others  are  legal,  or  of  perfect  enforce- 
ment, notwithstandino;  that  some  of  them  are  im- 
posed  by  it  on  others  towards  itself. 

8.  It  is  the  conception  of  Law  as  the  body  of 
commands  imposed  by  a  sovereign  which  leads  us  to 
begin  with  distinguishing  in  it  the  two  branches.  Pub- 
lic and  Civil,  since  these  are  the  two  main  branches 
into  which  the  commands  themselves  are  divided  in 
their  practical  enunciation  and  application.  But  it 
must  be  observed  that  this  is  a  distinction  between 
legal  institutions,  Kechtsinstitute,  to  borrow  von  Sa- 
vigny's  terms,  and  not  between  legal  relations,  Eechts- 
verhaltnisse ;  that  both  the  branches  are  equally  and 
alike  founded  in  a  general  logic  of  the  science  of  juris- 
prudence, consisting  of  distinctions  between  Rechts- 
verhaltnisse,  or  legal  relations  generally,  which  I 
propose  to  examine  in  connection  with  the  second 
branch,  that  of  Civil  Law.  The  Logic  of  Jurisprud- 
ence is  a  classification  of  legal  relations  generally; 
but  while  civil  law,  from  its  greater  complexity,  is 
not  intelligible  without  this  logic,-  the  simpler  rela- 
tions between  sovereign  and  subjects,  belonging  to 
public  law,  are  easily  understood  by  themselves,  al- 


174 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  hi. 

§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Public  Law, 


though  they  fall  under  the  logic  as  cases  of  legal 
relations  between  Persons.  (See  par.  23).  The  ad- 
vantage of  this  arrangement  is,  that  we  gain  some 
insight  into  the  nature  of  law  in  its  practical  shape, 
as  command  imposed  by  a  political  superior,  before 
approaching  it  from  the  abstract  side  as  the  logic  of 
legal  relations. 

9.  The  next  question  concerns  the  distinctions 
arising  within  public  law  itself.  It  is  clear  that  many, 
if  not  all,  of  the  obligations  contained  in  it  are  owed 
towards  private  individuals,  as  well  as  towards  the 
state,  that  it  is  only  by  injuries  to  private  persons 
that  the  state  is  injured.  Wherever  there  is  a  duty 
imposed  directly  to  the  state,  there  is  a  public  law 
and  a  public  obligation;  but  this  does  not  hinder  the 
same  duty  being  also  due  to  private  persons.  The 
persons  towards  whom  the  duties  are  imposed  help 
us  therefore  no  farther  in  distinguishino;  the  laws 
from  one  another.  The  next  distinction,  within  the 
class  of  public  laws,  must  be  drawn  from  differences 
in  the  persons  upon  whom  the  obligations  are  im- 
posed. The  state  imposes  duties  towards  itself,  but 
it  imposes  different  duties  upon  different  persons. 
In  the  first  place  it  imposes  some  duties  upon  all 
classes  of  persons  alike;  in  the  next  it  imposes  special 
duties  upon  special  classes,  classes  which  are  consti- 
tuted as  distinct  from  others  by  the  imposed  duties 
themselves.  These  special  classes  have  thus  two  kinds 
of  duties;  and  their  special  duties  may  be  towards 
other  individuals  as  well  as  towards  the  state.  When 
any  persons  are  thus  singled  out  and  laden  with 
special  duties,  imposed  upon  them  by  the  sovereign 
power,  they  become  invested  with  some  part  of  the 
power  of  the  sovereign  itself,  as  its  organs  or  instru- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


175 


ments ;  they  stand  midway  between  it  and  the  mass      book  ii. 
of  subjects,  owing  special  duties  to  both,  and  having         —  ' 

special  rights  in  the  shape  of  special  submissions  im-  Analysis'  and 
jiosed  on  the  mass  of  subjects  towards  them  in  that      'of  Law. 

character.  PubUc  Law. 

lo.  The  branches  of  State  or  Public  Law  appear 
accordingly  to  be  two : 

1.  General,  or  General  Penal  Law, 

2.  Special,  or  Administrative  Law. 

The  first  commands  forbearances  almost  exclusively, 
the  second  commands  acts  as  well.     In  the  first  we 
have  the  acts  which  every  individual,  in  his  private 
capacity,  is  forbidden  to  do  towards  other  individuals ; 
in  the  second  the  acts  which  officials,  of  any  kind, 
are  bound  both  to  do  and  to  refrain  from,  as  well  as 
those  acts  which  individuals  are  bound  to  do  and  to 
refrain  from  towards  officials.     The  second  therefore 
includes  all  those  parts  of  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment, sometimes  characterised  incorrectly  as  Consti- 
tutional Law,  which  consist  of  the  duties,  rights,  and 
functions,  of  the  special  organs  of  the  sovereign  power 
itself,  whether  these   organs  are  of  great  or  small 
power  and  dignity.     For  instance,  the  rights,  duties, 
and  functions,  of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  of  Com- 
mons, of  the  Crown,  of  the  Judiciary,  as  well  as  those 
of  jurors,  magistrates,  police,  soldiers,  revenue  col- 
lectors, in  short  of  employees  of  every  description, 
are  equally  included  under  its  provisions.   The  power 
of  the  sovereign  collectively  enforces  the  duties,  which 
embody  these  rights  and  these  functions,  upon  each 
of  its  special  organs,  whatever  may  be  its  rank  or 
importance.     Each  organ  has  a  code  of  duties,  and 
a  code  of  rights  consisting  in  duties  imposed  on  other 


176 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 

§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Public  Law. 


l^ersons,  or  other  organs,  to  which  it  is  legally  bound 
to  conform ;  it  is  only  where  these  codes  cease,  or  be- 
come indefinite  in  their  provisions,  that  Constitutional 
Law  begins;  it  is  only  where  they  are  extended  or 
transgressed  by  a  de  facto  power  that  Constitutional 
Law  is  altered.  The  mamtenance  of  the  Constitutional 
Law  means  the  tacit  exertion  of  the  collective  power 
of  the  sovereign  in  enforcing  the  observance  of  ad- 
ministrative law.  The  legal  development  of  the  Con- 
stitution means  the  gradual  changes  introduced  into 
administrative  law,  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution,  by  the  public  organs  of  the  sovereign 
already  established  for  that  purpose.  And  in  this 
working  of  the  machinery  of  the  state,  the  true  sove- 
reign is  embodied  not  in  this  or  that  organ,  the 
Houses,  the  Crown,  or  the  Judiciary,  but  in  the 
Law  itself,  which  is  common  to  them  all,  and  which 
only  their  collective  power  can  enforce; 

"  A  matchless  form  of  glorious  government, 
In  which  the  sovereign  laws  alone  command, 
Laws,  'stablished  hy  the  public  free  consent, 
Whose  majesty  is  to  the  sceptre  lent." 

1 1 .  The  general  branch  of  public  law  is  that  which 
enforces  acts  and  forbearances,  but  chiefly  forbear- 
ances, on  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals  towards 
others,  in  their  private  or  unofficial  capacity.  The 
distinction  here  available  for  further  classification  is 
derived  from  the  importance  of  the  act  or  forbearance 
commanded,  the  injury  done  or  threatened  by  viola- 
tion of  the  command,  or,  in  other  words,  by  the 
gravity  of  the  off'ence.  General  penal  law  falls  thus 
into  two  classes,  commands  constituting  and  punish- 
ing Crimes,  and  those  constituting  and  punishing 
Misdemeanours.     As  already  observed,  the  state  is 


THE  LOGIC  OF  TOLITIC. 


177 


injured  in  these  cases  only  by  and  through  injury 
done  to  individuals;  but  this  does  not  prevent  the 
injury  being  really  done  to  the  state.  State  officers 
are  the  proper  persons  to  set  the  law  in  action,  in 
order  to  enforce  these  obligations.  Nevertheless,  the 
double  incidence  of  the  injury  opens  a  door  for  the 
state,  if  it  sees  fit,  to  allow  the  individual  who  is 
injured  to  perform  the  office  of  the  public  or  state 
prosecutor.  But  this  alters  nothing  in  the  nature  of 
the  commands,  or  in  the  penalties  attached  to  them ; 
they  are  defined  by  the  person  to  whom  they  are 
owed   in   the   first  instance,  the   sovereisfn;  and  the 


Book  U. 

ch.  m. 


sovereign ; 


sovereign's  rights  are  not  destroyed  by  the  care  of 
enforcing  them  being  committed  to  private  persons. 
But  when  the  same  acts  or  forbearances  are  owed 
at  once  to  the  sovereign  and  to  private  persons,  they 
are  unavoidably  included  twice  over  in  the  system 
of  law,  once  as  part  of  public,  once  as  part  of  civil 
law.  They  have  or  may  have  two  distinct  kinds  of 
consequences,  the  one  in  the  shape  of  a  public  pen- 
alty, the  other  in  that  of  damages  for  a  civil  injury; 
and  these  two  consequences  are  not  necessarily  of 
equal  gravity.  An  injiiry  may  be  of  very  slight 
criminality,  and  yet  inflict  very  heavy  losses,  or  it 
may  inflict  but  small  loss  and  yet  be  of  a  high  degree 
of  criminality ;  as,  for  instance,  forgery  of  securities 
to  a  small  amount.  When  an  individual  enforces 
the  law  in  such  cases,  he  may  do  so  either  on  the 
ground  of  a  civil  or  a  public  injury.  In  the  latter 
case  he  virtually  steps  into  the  place  of  the  sovereign, 
foregoing  for  the  time  the  reparation  due  to  himself; 
in  the  former  he  enforces  the  reparation  which  the 
civil  law  attaches  to  the  civil  injury.  The  penalties 
for  public  offences  are  inflicted  by,  and  if  money  fines 
VOL.  II.  N 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Public  Law. 


178  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

bookh,      are  paid  to,  the  sovereign;  those  for  civil  injuries 

-^—  '       are  reparations  made  to  the  private  individuals  in- 

Analysis' and   jurcd.     Thus  uot  ouly  may  the  same  act  or  forbear- 
classification  ^  j^      r    •    •!  11  n        ^  ^'     ^  i, 

of  Law.  ance  lorm  a  part  ot  civil  as  well  as  oi  public  law,  but 
Public  Law.  also  its  comniissiou  or  neglect,  whether  prosecuted  by 
the  sovereign  or  by  an  individual,  may  be  attended 
with  two  kinds  of  penalties,  civil  damages  or  state- 
inflicted  punishment.  We  may  see  from  this  how 
impracticable  it  would  have  been  to  derive  the  prim- 
ary division  of  legal  commands  from  a  consideration 
of  the  acts  and  forbearances  commanded,  apart  from 
the  persons  towards  whom  they  are  imposed. 

12,  The  two  branches  of  public  law,  namely. 
General  Penal  Law  and  Administrative  Law,  may 
either  be  made  into  two  distinct  codes,  or  thrown 
together  into  a  single  code.  In  the  latter  case  they 
will  form  its  two  main  divisions;  and  to  both  alike, 
and  in  either  case,  the  distinction  between  greater 
and  minor  offences,  crimes  and  misdemeanours,  will 
be  applicable.  The  Penal  Code  of  Louisiana  is  an 
instance  of  the  latter  method.  By  Art.  7G  of  that 
Code :  ''  There  are  two  divisions  of  offences,  estab- 
lishing distinctions  drawn,  the  one  from  the  degree 
of  the  offence,  the  other  from  its  object.  By  the  first 
division,  all  offences  are  either  Crimes  or  Misde- 
meanors. By  the  second,  they  are  public  or  private 
offences."  The  latter  distinction  is  the  one  employed 
as  a  basis  of  classification,  and  all  offences  are  ar- 
ranged under  fifteen  general  heads  of  public,  and  six 
of  private  offences.  But  it  is  immediately  added,  in 
Art.  81,  that  this  division  of  offences  "is  intended 
only  for  the  establishment  of  order  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  code;  each  offence  will  be  hereinafter 
particularly  defined   and  illustrated;   and  no   act  or 


THE  LOGIC  OF  TOLITIC. 


179 


omission  is  an  offence,  which  does  not  come  within 
some  one  of  those  definitions  as  they  are  explained 
and  illustrated." 

13.  This  is  an  instance  of  the  true  method  of 
legal  classification;  the  principles  of  distinction  are 
first  laid  down,  then  the  particular  commands,  duties, 
and  penalties,  enumerated,  and  lastly  these  are  classi- 
fied by  reference  to  the  principles  of  distinction.  The 
two.  extremes  are  thus  harmonised  by  the  classifica- 
tion, without  it  being  attempted  to  evolve  either  of 
them  out  of  the  other.  Were  it  attempted  to  evolve 
the  commands  and  penalties  out  of  the  principles  of 
distinction,  a  complicated  and  artificial  system,  unfit 
for  daily  use,  might  be  expected  to  result ;  while  it 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  educe  true  principles 
of  distinction  from  the  mere  consideration  of  an  im- 
mense mass  of  commands  and  penalties. 

1 4.  The  great  practical  requisite  either  for  a  code 
or  for  a  system  of  uncodified  law  is,  that  its  divisions 
should  follow  those  into  which  the  acts  and  events 
fall,  to  which  it  is  to  be  applied;  so  that  the  treat- 
ment prescribed  by  law  to  each  act  should  be  found 
under  its  own  head  in  the  code,  without  having  to 
compare  several  heads  and  construct,  out  of  their 
conflicting  prescriptions,  the  law  applicable  to  the 
case.  The  law  should  be  as  completely  distributed 
as  the  acts  of  life,  and  the  artificial  classification  of 
the  one  should  be  conformed  to  the  natural  classifica- 
tion of  the  other.  This  is  much  more  nearly  attain- 
able in  Public  than  in  Civil  law;  but  the  principle 
should  be  the  same  in  both ;  and  the  ground  already 
won,  in  examining  the  classification  of  the  former, 
will  supply  the  clue  by  w^hich  to  attempt  that  of  the 
latter  more  complicated  case. 


Book  II. 

Ch.  in. 

§90. 

Analj'sis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Public  Law. 


180 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II.  I  c.  The  essGntial  difference  of  Civil  Law  from 

Ch  III 

^—  '       Pablic  consists  in  this,  that  it  has  not  only  to  com- 

S  90 

Analysis  and    mand  and  forbid  certain   acts,  which  it  may  define 
of  Law.       for  itself,  leaving  all  other  acts  alone,  but  has  also  to " 

CivULaw.      permit  as  well  as  command  and  forbid;  and  there- 
fore to  regulate  all  possible  acts  of  human  life,  to  de- 
clare and  define  what  acts  it  will  recognise  as  legally 
valid  for  the  purposes  proposed  by  the  doers  of  them ; 
what  legal  effects  follow  the  doing  or  neglect  of  par- 
ticular acts  upon  the  respective  rights  and  estates, 
not  only  of  the  parties  to  them,  but  also  of  third  per- 
sons; what  characters  and  properties  are  attached  to 
persons  and  things  from  different  circumstances,  such 
for  instance  as  birth,  age,  and  locality.     All  possible 
circumstances  and  events  of  life  are  to  be  dealt  with 
by  civil  law ;  it  cannot  exclude  from  its  purview  by 
excluding  from  its  definitions;  and  for  this  reason, 
that  the  sovereign  itself  is  not  a  party  but  a  judge 
between  parties,  and  both   sides  must  have  justice 
done  them.     The  sovereign  is  a  party  in  public  law, 
and  fixes  its  own  rights,  the  duties  of  others,  before- 
hand; whatever  it  omits  expressly  to  command  or 
forbid  it  is  supposed  to  permit.     But  in  civil  law  it 
is  precisely  this  line  between  the  parties  which  must 
be  drawn  afresh  in  every  debated  instance;  a  per- 
mission accorded  to  one  party  is  a  permission  denied 
to  the  other ;  the  extension  of  rights  on  one  side  is  a 
diminution  of  rights  on  the  other.     The  great  pur- 
pose of  civil  law  is  to  give  effect  to  the  intentions  of 
men  so  far  as  they  are  just,  and  to  ascertain  and  en- 
force justice  between  them,  where  these  intentions 
are  in  conflict.     It  must  therefore  lay  down  rules  to 
regulate  the  whole  of  life. 

1 6.  It  is  a  consequence  of  this  greater  extent  of 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


181 


I500K  II. 

Cu.  III. 


§  90- 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


field,  that  the  enactments  of  public  law  depend  in  a 
great  measure  upon  those  of  civil.     Before   the   in- 
fringement of  rights  in  property,  for  instance,  can  be 
treated  as  a  penal   offence,  those  rights  in  property 
must  be  defined,  and  then  their  intentional  violation     civii  Law 
can  be  punished.     There  is  indeed  one  additional  cir- 
cumstance here,  which  makes  the  case  more  compli- 
cated, namely,  intention  and  the  proof  of  intention ; 
so  far  public   law  is   more   complicated   than   civil; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  right  of  property  and  its 
intentional  infringement  once  shown,  public  law  has 
no  more  to  do  than  to  punish  the  offender,  while  civil 
law  has  to  ascertain  and   enforce  the  various  rights 
and  duties  which  may  be  the  consequences  of  his  act. 
For  instance,  a  sale,  though  fraudulent  on  the  part 
of  the   seller,  may  give  rights  in  the   thing  sold  to 
bona  fide  purchasers,  who  then  have  rights  as  against 
the  original  possessors,  whose  rights  have  been  frau- 
dulently infringed.     Fraud   then   is   a  less    compli- 
cated matter  in  public  law  than  in  civil,  notwith- 
standing that  intention  to  defraud  is  involved  in  the 
question,  and  apart  from  its  depending  partly  for  its 
definition  upon  the  rights  and  duties  created  by  civil 
law ;  for  public  law  makes  abstraction  of  all  the  legal 
consequences  of  acts,  except  so  far  as  they  affect  the 
position  of  the  agent  towards  the  sovereign.     Every- 
thing else  belongs  to  civil  law. 

17.  Notwithstanding  the  greater  extent  and  com- 
plexity of  the  undertaking,  the  problem  in  civil  law 
is  of  the  same  nature  as  in  public.  It  is  to  enu- 
merate and  classify  the  commands,  acts  and  forbear- 
ances commanded,  in  other  words,  the  Obligations 
imposed,  in  such  a  way  that  the}'  shall  be  imme- 
diately applicable   to   any  case  which    may  arise   in 


182 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Civil  Law. 


Book  II.      ordinary  life,  calline:  for  a  decision  between  conflict- 

Ch.  III.  J  '  o 

—         ino^  claims.    Each  act  in  daily  life  stands  in  a  manner 

§  90.  ^  "^  , 

Analysis  aud    scijarate  from  others,  and  has  a  history,  causes  and 

classification  .  -i  t  n  •  \ 

of  Law.  consequences,  motives  and  results,  of  its  own.  A  man 
mortgages  his  land  by  one  instrument,  and  makes 
a  marriage  settlement  by  another;  he  agrees  to  sell 
Consols  by  one  instrument,  to  purchase  railway  stock 
by  another.  Each  of  these  transactions  belongs  to  a 
separate  series  of  events;  each  should  be  regulated 
by  provisions  under  separate  heads  in  the  code  of 
law.  Thus  there  are  two  conditions  to  be  fulfilled 
by  any  code  of  civil  law;  one,  that  it  should  be  dis- 
tributed in  accordance  with  the  natural  classifica- 
tion of  the  acts  and  events  of  life ;  the  other,  that  it 
should  take  the  form  of  commanding  Duties,  not  of 
establishing  Rights;  that  its  commands  and  prohibi- 
tions should  be  addressed  to  those  who  are  to  obey 
them,  not  to  those  who  are  to  profit  by  them. 

1 8.  In  the  foregoing  remarks  is  already  contained 
the  cardinal  distinction  which  is,  before  all  others, 
applicable  to  Law  as  a  part  of  human  voluntary  ac- 
tion, the  distinction  of  it  into  a  science  and  an  art. 
The  science  is  known  by  the  name  Jurisprudence; 
the  art  is  shown  principally  in  the  enactments  of  the 
legislator  as  carried  out  by  the  machinery  of  the 
Judiciary.  But  the  art  and  the  science  deal  with 
the  same  matter,  and  traverse  the  same  ground;  the 
science  being  occupied  with  its  analysis  and  classi- 
fication, the  art  in  employing  the  knowledge  so  ob- 
tained in  the  construction  of  a  system  of  enactments 
in  a  form  suitable  for  practical  application.  The 
legislator  and  the  judge  speak  to  the  people,  the 
scientific  jurist  speaks  to  the  judge  and  the  legis- 
lator.    Nevertheless  the  domains  of  the  art  and  of 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


183 


Book  XL 
Ch.  III. 


§90. 


classitication 
of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


the  science  are  not  exclusive,  but  the  former  is  in 
some  sort  contained  in  the  latter.  The  scientific 
jurist  has  to  consider  not  only  the  general  principles  Analysis  and 
of  the  science,  but  also  the  particular  codes  or  sys- 
tems of  law,  which  are  from  time  to  time  and  place 
to  place  enacted;  not  only  the  logic  of  the  subject, 
but  also  the  code  in  connection  with  the  loiric,  its 
position  towards  it,  and  manner  of  dependence  on 
it.  The  practical  part  of  law,  the  code  or  system, 
is  one  branch  of  the  whole  science  of  jurisprud^ice. 

19.  This  distinction  between  law  and  jurisprud- 
ence, between  the  historical  de  facto  commands  and 
the  science  upon  which  they  are  based,  being  once 
clearly  drawn,  a  further  distinction  in  the  science 
rises  into  view.  The  science,  which  is  jurisprudence, 
is  then  seen  to  be  applicable  to  all  systems  of  law 
alike,  having  both  a  general  and  most  abstract  part, 
common  to  all,  which  may  be  called  the  Pure  Logic 
of  Jurisprudence,  and  several  special  parts  or  branches, 
according  as  from  this  are  deduced  the  several  sys- 
tems of  jurisprudence  which  are  the  theories,  or 
abstract  counterparts,  of  the  several  national  codes, 
or  systems,  of  positive,  institutional,  concrete  law. 
Jurisprudence  is  the  applied  logic  of  law ;  and  there 
is  yet  a  more  abstract  and  completely  general  logic 
of  jurisprudence  itself.  Law  offers  a  new  instance 
of  a  branch  of  human  activity  becoming  more  com- 
pletely organic,  more  clearly  distinguished  into  theory 
and  practice,  abstract  side  and  concrete  side,  as  time 
and  practice  develop  it. 

20.  The  distinction  between  law  and  jurisprud- 
ence, and  the  consequences  which  result  from  it,  are 
the  feature  which  perhaps  most  needs  illustration 
at  the  present  day.     The  distinctions  of  the  logic  of 


184 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 

Ch.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law, 


jurisprudence  have  usually  been  adopted  as  the  di- 
visions of  codes.  There  is  not  only  no  necessity  for 
such  a  practice,  but  it  is  one  which,  if  uncorrected  by 
a  salutary  inconsequence,  would  introduce  confusion 
into  the  codes  where  it  should  prevail.  The  Insti- 
tutes of  Justinian,  for  instance,  founded  it  is  said 
on  those  of  Gains,  are  distributed  under  the  three 
heads  of  Persons,  Things,  and  Actions.  (Inst.  Just. 
Lib.  i.  Tit.  iii.)  Now  Persons  and  Things  seem  to 
belong  properly  to  the  logic  of  the  science,  but  Ac- 
tions to  the  practice.  There  arises,  besides,  the  much 
debated  question,  to  which  of  these  three  heads  Ob- 
ligations belong ;  obligations  constituting,  in  Jus- 
tinian's Institutes,  a  separate  department,  treated  at 
great  length,  interposed  between  Things  and  Actions. 
Hence  some  rectification  of  this  distribution  has  been 
frequently  found  requisite  by  jurists;  in  particular, 
von  Savigny,  in  his  work  already  cited,  §  59,  redis- 
tributes it  as  follows :  Family  Law ;  Property  Law, 
containing  both  law  of  things  and  law  of  obligations ; 
and  Actions,  or  Yerfolgung  der  Rechte.  Divisions 
similar  to  this  of  Justinian's,  and  founded  upon  it, 
prevail  in  many  modern  Codes;  for  instance,  in  the 
Code  Napoleon,  Liv.  i.  Des  Personnes;  Liv.  ii.  Des 
Biens  et  des  differentes  modifications  de  la  Propriete : 
Liv.  iii.  Des  differentes  manieres  dont  on  acquiert  la 
Propriete.  Here  the  difi*erent  modes  of  acquisition 
take  the  place  of  Actions,  a  circumstance  in  which 
may  be  seen  the  effect  of  the  distinction,  to  be  drawn 
out  farther  on,  between  the  static  arid  dynamic  modes 
of  enquiry,  in  which  there  is  placed,  to  use  von  Sa- 
vigny's  terms  on  another  occasion,  "neben  der  sta- 
bilen  Seite  ihrer  Natur  auch  die  bewegliche  Seite 
derselben."    (§  59.)    So  also  the  Civil  Code  of  Loui- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  185 

siana  has  three  Books,  with  titles  just  the  same  as       Uookii 


Cii.  Ill, 


§90. 


those   of  the  Code   Napoleon.      The  Draft   of  Code 
proposed  for  adoption  to  the  State   of  New  York    AnaFysll' and 
goes  back  again  to  the  old  nomenclature,  without    *^^of'Law!°" 
however  being  much  different  in  substance.     It  has      ch^Taw. 
four  Divisions :  Persons ;  Property ;  Obligations ;  and 
General  Provisions  applicable  to  the  three  former. 

2 1 .  The  secret  of  these  modifications,  the  possi- 
bility of  substituting  Modes  of  Acquisition  for  Obli- 
gations and  for  Actions,  is  found  by  attending  to  the 
distinction  between  static  and  dynamic  logic.  Per- 
sons and  things  belong  to  the  former ;  modes  of  ac- 
quisition, obligations,  and  actions,  to  the  latter.  Now 
the  Komans  had  completely  classified  the  two  por- 
tions of  the  statical  branch,  persons  and  things ;  but 
their  analysis  had  not  mastered,  but  only  touched, 
those  of  the  dynamical.  "La  methode  romaine  avait 
discerne  et  classe  ces  deux  premiers  elements;  *  *  * 
Mais  la  deduction  s'etait  arretee  la;  elle  n'est  pas 
complete.  *  *  *  le  droit  n'est  pas  encore  engendre. 
II  manque  la  cause  efficiente,  la  cause  generatrice, 
la  cause  qui  fera  naitre,  qui  transmettra  de  Tun  a 
I'autre,  qui  modifiera,  qui  detruira  les  droits.  Ce 
troisieme  element,  le  voici:  3'^  Les  evenements,  les 
faits,  les  actes  de  I'homme,  juridiques  ou  non  juri- 
diques :  ce  qui  comprend  I'idee  du  temps,  du  lieu, 
de  I'intention,  de  la  forme,  toutes  choses  qui  entrent 
dans  la  composition  des  faits  et  des  actes  humains." 
(M.  Ortolan,  Explication  des  Instituts  de  Justinian. 
Generalisation.  Titre  Preliminaire,  iii.)  The  branches 
of  the  dynamic  logic  are  then  two,  according  as  the 
acts  are  "juridiques  ou  non  juridiques,"  one  contain- 
ing all  those  acts  and  events  which  modify  property 
and  personal  relations  without  the  intervention  of  a 


186 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Oh.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classitication 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


court  of  justice,  the  other  those  modifications  which 
that  intervention  introduces. 

11.  When  we  apply  this  distinction  to  the  one 
first  mentioned  between  the  science  and  the  art  of 
law,  it  appears  at  first  sight  as  if  the  practical  inter- 
vention of  the  legislator  and  the  judge  comprised 
only  the  fourth  of  the  four  divisions  now  introduced 
into  the  science;  the  three  first  divisions  belonging 
to  the  science  alone,  as  facts  already  existing,  pro- 
visions already  made  by  positive  law  and  decisions 
upon  it.  Persons,  things,  and  modes  of  dealing  with 
property,  seem  to  belong  to  the  science;  actions  to 
the  art.  But  this  is  far  from  being  the  case.  The 
intervention  of  the  judge  alone  may  extend  indeed 
only  to  this  fourth  division ;  but  that  of  the  legislator 
is  coextensive  with  the  whole  range  of  all  four  divi- 
sions. He  has  before  him  indeed  existing  law  as  the 
basis  of  his  work,  but  he  may  modify  any  part  of  it, 
and  in  any  way.  The  four  branches  of  the  logic, 
two  statical.  Persons  and  Things,  and  two  dynamical, 
Modes  of  Dealing  and  Actions,  lie  before  him  as  a 
framework  for  better  grasping  in  his  mind  the  matter 
he  has  to  deal  with.  The  question  is,  whether  his 
Code  or  System  of  Law,  addressed  to  the  people, 
shall  follow  these  same  distinctions  which  the  jurists 
have  adopted  in  addressing  their  instructions  to  him- 
self. 

23.  The  distinction  now  insisted  on,  between  the 
logic  of  jurisprudence  and  the  law  as  enunciated  by 
the  sovereign,  corresponds  to  and  coincides  with  a 
distinction  laid  down  by  von  Savigny  as  the  basis  of 
his  system,  namely,  the  distinction  between  Rechts- 
verhaltniss  and  Rechtsinstitut,  §§  4,  5,  of  work  cited, 
(see  par.  8).     A  Rechtsverhaltniss  is  a  legal  relation 


THE  LOGIC  OF  I'OLITIC. 


187 


between  parties,  and  may  be  broken  up  into  the 
ri"hts  and  duties  which  exist  between  them  reci- 
procally.  But  this  is  always  founded  upon  a  Rechts- 
institut,  that  is,  an  established  legal  institution  or 
law,  which  may  be  expressed  by  the  sovereign  in 
several  forms,  of  which  the  highest  or  most  general 
is  a  legal  rule  or  maxim,  Rechtsregel,  the  next  a 
statute  or  Gesetz,  the  lowest  a  judicial  decision  or 
Rechtsurtheil.  He  speaks  too  in  §  7  of  "  die  un- 
zweifelhafte  Thatsache,  dass  liberall,  wo  ein  Rechts- 
verhaltniss  zur  Frage  und  zum  Bewusstseyn  kommt, 
eine  Regel  fiir  dasselbe  liingst  vorhanden,  also  jetzt 
erst  zu  erfinden  weder  nothig  noch  moglich  ist." 
This  seems  equivalent  to  saying,  that  a  Rechtsver- 
hiiltniss  is  a  conception  abstracted  from,  or  gathered 
out  of,  practice  and  positive  law,  whether  customary 
or  statute,  that  is,  out  of  the  fact  of  a  Rechtsinstitut, 
with  its  derivatives,  Rechtsregel,  Gesetz,  and  Ur- 
theil,  which  existed  first  in  order  of  history.  Under 
Rechsinstitut  he  sums  up  and  characterises  posi- 
tive laws  as  facts  of  history;  under  Rechtsverhaltniss 
juristical  conceptions,  rights  and  correlative  rights, 
springing  out  of  the  study  of  those  facts  and  those 
laws.  Hence  quite  consistently  he  maintains,  in  ac- 
cordance with  Austin's  conception,  that  the  proper 
form  of  all  law  is  the  form  of  command,  Gebot ;  be- 
cause it  springs  from  the  highest  j^ower,  and  its  effect 
is  to  enforce  obedience.  But  he  immediately  adds, 
to  obviate  the  possibility  of  misconstruction,  "  Da- 
durch  entsteht  indessen  ein  Missverhaltniss  zwischen 
dem  Gesetz  und  dem  Rechtsinstitut,  dessen  organ- 
ische  Natur  in  jener  abstracten  Form  unmoglich  er- 
schopft  werden  kann."    §  13. 

24.   Side  by  side  then  with  the  logic  of  jurisprud- 


RooK  n. 
ch.  ni. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


188 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  III. 

§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Civil  Law. 


ence,  with  its  four  heads,  two  static,  two  dynamic, 
there  stands  the  system  of  laws  as  they  may  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  sovereign  for  the  guidance  of  the  people. 
This  latter  is  law  in  its  de  facto  institution,  in  its  his- 
torical shape.    Jurisprudence  is  the  abstract  handling 
of  its  provisions,  and  the  comparing  them  to  the  sim- 
ple scientific  conceptions  which  are  contained  in  the 
logic.     The  jurist  has  to  understand,  and  render  in- 
telligible to  others,  the  laws  which  are  contained  in 
the  statute  book;  but  it  is  not  his  duty  as  a  jurist  to 
urge  reforms,  repeals,  or  new  enactments,  in  the  sole 
view  of  the  benefit  to  result  to  the  community.    This 
is  the  duty  of  the  statesman,  whose  office  is  therefore 
more  comprehensive  than  the  jurist's,  involving  the 
jurist's  in  itself.     It  is  important  that  the  study  of 
jurisprudence  should  be  pushed  to  its  utmost  limits, 
or,  m  other  words,  that  the  logic  should  be  carried  to 
the  greatest  possible  perfection  of  organic  simplicity. 
It  is  the  Organon  of  Law.     Now  it  has  been  already 
remarked,  that  to  adopt  the  divisions  of  the  logic  as 
those  of  the  Code  or  Statute  Book  may  be  injurious 
to  the  usefulness  of  the  latter ;  but  it  is  no  less  true, 
that  to  do  so  may  be  injurious  to  the  perfection  of 
the  logic.     For,  in  order  to   render   its   distinctions 
available  for  the  code,  they  must  not  be  pushed  to 
their  consequences,  nor  exhibited  in  that  complete 
interdependence  which  is  their  nature.     Hence  it  be- 
comes no  one's  interest  to  follow  the  study  of  juris- 
prudence into  the  ultimate  distinctions  of  its  analysis; 
enouo'h  is  thouo-ht  to  be  done  when  those  distinctions 
are  exhibited  (though  falsely)  as  ultimate,  which  are 
available  as  practical  distinctions  of  the  code. 

25.  What  then  is  this   Logic   of  Jurisprudence ; 
how  far  can  it  be  logically  carried ;  and  at  what  point 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


189 


should  we  have  to  stop  short,  if  we  were  to  adopt  its 
distinctions  as  the  practical  divisions  of  a  Code  ?  The 
four  heads  already  given  are  the  basis  or  outline  of 
the  logic ;  and,  when  we  ask  how  far  we  can  carry 
them,  that  is,  in  other  words,  what  they  are  in  their 
ultimate  simplicity,  the  first  observation  which  occurs 
is  this,  that  they  are  not  so  many  divergent  branches 
of  law,  each  covering  ground  of  its  own  which  is  not 
covered  by  the  others,  but  that  they  are  so  many 
aspects  of  the  whole  law,  each  incomplete  in  itself, 
but  when  completed  producing  the  other  three  out 
of  itself  and  out  of  its  own  fund  of  conceptions. 

26.  To  begin  with.  What  is  a  Person?  A  person 
is  a  creation  of  law,  the  subject  of  rights  and  duties. 
Every  command  supposes  a  person,  or  subject,  on 
whom  it  is  imposed,  and  a  subject  towards  whom  it 
is  imposed;  a  duty  is  created  in  the  first,  a  right  in 
the  second;  and  the  two  persons  are  defined  by  the 
duties  and  the  rights  thus  imposed.  Person  means 
legal  character.  For  instance,  the  law  recognises  the 
legal  relation  of  Father  and  Son ;  a  father  is  a  person 
who  has  certain  duties  imposed  on  him  towards  his 
son,  and  towards  whom  the  son  has  certain  other 
duties  imposed  on  him  reciprocally.  The  duties  of 
the  father  are  the  rights  of  the  son,  the  duties  of  the 
son  the  rights  of  the  father.  Such  reciprocal  rights 
and  duties  constitute  the  legal  Status  of  the  parties. 
The  difference  between  Person  and  Status  is  that  be- 
tween part  and  whole  ;  two  persons  have  one  status 
between  them ;  a  father  and  son  have  each  the  status 
called  the  status  of  father  and  son.  In  other  words, 
person  is  the  name  for  the  individuals,  status  that 
for  the  legal  relation  which  subsists  between  them. 
Two  persons  at  least  are  requisite  to  any  status. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Civil  Law. 


190 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II.  27.  There  is  no  need  to  introduce  here  the  dis- 

Ch.  III.  ... 

—         tmction  between  natural  aud  leo;al  status,  or  between 

§  90.  .  . 

Analysis  and    status  and  coiitract,  any  more  than,  in  speaking  of 

classification  _  ,,...,  -, 

of  Law.  persons,  to  advert  to  the  distinction  between  natural 
Civo  Law.  or  physical  and  legal  persons.  These  are  distinctions 
in  the  history,  the  historical  growth,  of  law,  not  in 
its  logic.  Natural  persons  and  natural  things  are 
extra-legal  matter,  with  or  upon  which  legal  concep- 
tions are  occupied,  and  which  enable  each  of  the  four 
cardinal  legal  conceptions  to  produce  the  other  three 
out  of  its  own  fund,  as  remarked  in  par.  25.  The 
logic  knows  only  legal  person  and  legal  status;  that 
is  its  starting  point.  Whatever  natural  objects,  per- 
sons or  things,  may  be  adopted  or  recognised  by  law 
as  its  objects,  it  is  not  the  objects  themselves  but 
the  objects  as  recognised  that  are  before  the  jurist. 
They  become  legal  objects  when  they  are  taken  up 
out  of  nature ;  what  they  were  before  is  entirely  in- 
diiferent.  Thus,  status  may  arise  either  by  natural 
events,  or  by  contract,  or  by  a  mixture  of  both  ; 
father  and  son  are  an  instance  of  the  first ;  master 
and  servant  of  the  second ;  father  and  legitimately 
born  children  of  the  third. 

28.  The  neglect  of  natural  or  physical  persons 
in  the  logic  of  jurisprudence  may  be  illustrated  by 
a  corresponding  feature  in  that  more  general  logic 
which  is  metaphj^sic.  Just  as  metaphysic  begins  with 
the  analysis  of  perceptions,  in  their  nature,  without 
first  asking  after  their  origin  or  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, while  psychology  begins  by  laying  down  these 
conditions  arbitrarily,  a  percipient  and  an  object  to 
be  perceived  (which  are  here  the  counterparts  to 
the  natural  or  physical  persons  in  law),  before  pro- 
ceeding to  the   perceptions  ;   whereas  in  truth  it  is 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


191 


only  by  analysis  of  perceptions  themselves  that  per- 
cipient or  object  can  be  understood  or  defined  ;  so 
in  law  the  true  method  beo-ins  with  the  oblio-ations, 
the  commands  of  acts  or  forbearances,  as  that  which 
alone  can  explain,  as  of  itself  involving,  the  exist- 
ence of  persons  invested  with  a  legal  character,  or 
of  things  invested  with  legal  attributes  as  objects  of 
possession. 

29.  The  same  conceptions  apply  to  Things.  Here 
also  we  find  legal  notions  still  entangled  by  the  no- 
menclature which  has  descended  from  times  when 
the  logic  was  not  yet  distinguished  from  the  history 
of  law.  Things  meant  originally  in  law  things  na- 
tural or  physical,  objects  of  possession  by  persons 
natural  or  physical.  It  was  a  great  step  when  things 
were  distinguished  into  corporeal  and  incorporeal, 
and  a  further  step  when  "  rights"  were  included 
among  the  latter.  But  to  maintain  such  distinctions 
as  ultimate  distinctions  of  the  pure  logic  of  law  would 
be  to  burden  it  with  past  incompletenesses,  to  con- 
found the  distinction  between  logic  and  history,  a 
vain  endeavour  to  systematise  anarchy.  The  logic 
knows  nothing  of  things  corporeal  and  incorporeal; 
it  is  a  distinction  of  practice,  a  distinction  for  the 
Code,  and  only  so  far  forth  for  jurisprudence  as  this 
gives  back  again  those  practical  distinctions  in  an 
abstract  shape. 

30.  Thing  in  logic  means  the  object  or  substance 
of  a  right  or  duty,  the  benefit  which  a  person  enjoys 
in  consequence  of  obligations  imposed  on  others,  or 
which  he  is  under  an  obligation  to  confer  on  them. 
The  proper  term  for  things  is  Estates.  A  right  of 
dominion  or  possession,  jus  in  rem,  good  against  all 
the  world,  is  the  estate  a  man  has  in  the  corporeal 


IJOOK  II. 

Cii.  III. 

§90. 

Analysis  and 

classiticatioa 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


192 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  il  or  incorporeal  thing  possessed ;  it  is  in  him  the  cor- 
—  relate  of  the  oblio:ations  imposed  on  other  persons. 
Analysis  and  It  mav  be  brolvcn  up  into  the  several  obligations  im- 
of  Law.  posed  on  all  people  alike,  such  as  forbearances  to 
Civil  Law.  interfere  with  the  owner's  enjoyment  of  it  by  steal- 
ing, destroying,  trespassing,  falsifying  documents  of 
title,  and  so  on.  So  also  the  mass  of  rights  which 
a  man  has,  his  right  to  his  good  name,  to  liberty  of 
person,  to  dress  and  title  of  office  or  rank,  consist 
in  corresponding  prohibitions  to  interfere  with  them 
addressed  to  others.  What  remains  over  and  above 
these  in  the  right  is  nothing  but  the  pleasure  or 
profit  the  man  may  reap  or  think  he  reaps  from  its 
enjoyment.  Now  these  pleasures  or  profits,  even  in 
their  specific  differences,  cun  plainly  afford  no  ground 
for  legal  definition;  they  are  heterogeneous  to  law, 
not  capable  of  measurement  or  valuation  by  third 
parties.  When  we  ask  ivhat  such  and  such  a  right, 
such  and  such  an  estate,  consists  in,  the  answer  can 
only  be  given  by  the  legal  obligations  imposed  on 
other  persons.  The  specific  pleasure  or  profit  in 
rights  or  estates,  the  specific  extension  of  a  man's 
natural  powers,  or  the  artificial  scope  secured  to  his 
will,  (to  recur  to  von  Savigny's  expressions),  is  as 
much,  and  in  a  very  similar  manner,  excluded  from 
the  logic  of  law,  as  value-in-use  is  from  the  logic  of 
political  economy,  which  has  directly  to  do  only  with 
value-in-exchange. 

31.  The  duty  to  abstain  from  all  molestation  of 
a  person  dealing  with  anything,  on  the  part  of  all 
other  persons  generally,  is  the  permission  to  him  to 
deal  with  it  as  he  chooses,  that  is,  it  is  his  right  of 
property  in  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  obligation 
on  him  to  forbear  injury  to  others  is  a  restraint  on 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


193 


his  dealing  with  it  entirely  as  he  chooses,  as,  for  in- 
stance, to  set  up  a  nuisance  on  his  land,  or  to  fire  a 
barrel  of  gunpowder  in  the  street.  Particular  rights, 
jura  in  personam,  consist  in  commands  addressed  to 
particular  persons  to  do  or  to  forbear  particular  acts, 
as,  for  instance,  not  to  desert,  but  to  maintain,  wife 
and  children,  which  is  their  right  to  companionship 
and  maintenance;  to  perform  contracts  express  or 
implied;  to  fulfil  obligations  springing  from  wrong 
or  from  construction  of  law.  Now  "  every  right  is 
a  right  in  rem,  or  a  right  in  personam ;"  Austin, 
Lect.  xvi.  That  is,  every  right  is  founded  on  obli- 
gations incumbent  either  on  all  men  alike,  or  on 
particular  men  only.  The  whole  field  of  rights  is 
covered  by  this  distinction. 

32.  By  the  logical  conception  of  Estates  all  bar- 
rier is  broken  down  between  the  supposed  branches 
of  law  of  things  and  law  of  persons,  and  both  are 
shown  to  cover  the  same  ground,  to  be  two  aspects 
of  the  same  thino;.  All  rio-hts  are  estates  in  the  sub- 
ject  of  them,  whether  they  are  large  estates  or  small, 
parts  contained  in  wholes,  or  wholes  containing  parts. 
Rights  to  have  certain  acts  performed  by  certain  per- 
sons at  certain  times,  for  instance,  to  have  deeds  ex- 
hibited which  make  part  of  the  title  to  a  purchased 
farm,  are  estates  in  the  logic  of  law;  there  is  a  cer- 
tain definite  interest  secured  to  a  man  by  an  obliga- 
tion imposed  on  other  persons.  Personal  rights,  as, 
for  instance,  to  good  name,  to  companionship,  are 
equally  estates  by  the  same  rule.  The  servant  has 
a  certain  estate  secured  by  the  obligations  of  the  mas- 
ter, and  the  master  by  those  of  the  servant. 

2,3.  The  largest  kind  of  estate  in  civil  law  is  the 
Dominium  of  Roman  law,  a  majestic  conception.*  But 

VOL.  II.  0 


Book  IL 
Ch.  III. 

§00. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


194 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 

§90. 

Analysis  and 

classili  cation 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


it  requires  the  previous  natural  or  extra-legal  sepa- 
ration of  the  thing  or  object  over  which  the  owner- 
ship is  to  be  exercised.  Starting  from  such  a  sepa- 
rate object  of  ownership,  all  smaller  estates  may  be 
classified  by  their  relations  to  dominium,  which  may 
be  called,  in  the  first  place,  an  universitas  of  jura  in 
re.  To  have  some  rights  but  not  all  in  the  particu- 
lar object  is  to  have  rights  in  re  but  not  dominium. 
If  these  rights,  whether  some  or  all,  are  good  against 
all  the  world,  they  are  also  rights  in  rem.  But  to 
have  a  right  or  rights  as  against  some  persons  and 
not  others  is  to  have  rights  in  personam  not  in  rem, 
notwithstandino;  that  these  rio;hts  are  rio;hts  in  re. 
Wherever  there  is  a  smaller  estate  carved  out  of 
a  larger,  if  the  larger  estate  is  a  physically  separate 
object,  there  is  jus  or  jura  in  re,  meaning  by  re  the 
larger  estate.  And  the  owner  of  the  smaller  estate 
may  own  it  against  all  the  world,  or  have  jus  in  rem 
with  regard  to  it,  just  as  much  as  if  it  were  a  domi- 
nium. Biit  he  has  also  jus  in  personam  against  the 
owner  of  the  larger  estate,  a  jus  which  consists  in  the 
obligations  on  that  owner  to  do  or  to  abstain  from 
such  acts  as  secure  or  prevent  his  enjoyment  of  the 
smaller  estate.  He  has  both  jus  in  rem  and  jus  in 
personam,  on  the  ground  of  his  smaller  estate,  the 
particular  person  requisite  to  support  the  jus  in  per- 
sonam being  already  determined  by  the  ownership  of 
the  larger  estate.  Dominium,  then,  gives  of  itself  no 
jus  in  ]3ersonam;  it  is  an  universitas  of  jura  in  re  et 
in  rem ;  and  these  include  no  special  obligations.  It 
is  only  when  they  are  infringed  or  threatened  that 
jura  in  personam  can  be  derived  from  them. 

34.  Here  becomes  visible  for  the  first  time  the 
connection  between  Estates  and  Actions.     Every  es- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


195 


tate,  lar2:e  or  small,  and  whether  it  consists  in  rijjhts 
to  possess  or  in  rights  to  have  acts  performed,  is  of 
itself  a  right,  or  collection  of  rights,  good  against  all 
the  world.  But  other  secondary  estates  or  rights 
may  be  derived  from  it.  These  secondary  rights  are 
those  which  are  necessary  either  for  its  establish- 
ment or  for  its  protection.  All  such  secondary  rights 
or  estates  are  jura  in  personam;  for  it  is  only  from 
particular  persons  that  the  acts  requisite  to  the  esta- 
blishment of  estates  can  be  demanded,  or  that  the 
infringement  of  estates  can  proceed  or  threaten  to 
proceed.  Hence,  while  all  estates  are  good  against  all 
the  world,  the  practical  enjoyment  of  them  must  be 
secured  by  action  against  the  particular  individuals, 
from  whom  their  establishment  may  be  demanded, 
or  by  whom  they  are  infringed  or  threatened.  A 
right  of  action  is  therefore  a  jus  in  personam,  this 
person  being  defined  either  by  his  infringing  or 
threatening  to  infringe  a  legal  estate,  or  else  by  his 
neglecting  to  perform  acts  to  which  he  is  bound  for 
the  establishment  of  one. 

3  5.  The  Obligations  of  Roman  law,  or,  more  ge- 
nerally, rights  to  acts  and  forbearances  of  particular 
persons,  not  immediately  to  the  possession  of  a  parti- 
cular thing,  may  be  considered  as  consisting  in  par- 
ticular services,  or  particular  forbearances,  carved  out 
of  the  dominium  of  a  master  over  the  person  of  a 
slave.  All  conceivable  acts  and  forbearances  on  the 
part  of  the  slave  are  the  object  of  this  imaginary 
dominium,  which  never  could  have  existed  de  facto 
in  its  whole  extent,  but  which  may  be  imagined  as 
an  universitas  of  jura  in  jjersona,  out  of  which  the 
jura  in  personam,  all  the  special  obligations  to  do, 
to  forbear,  or  to  perform  anything,  which  may  be 


Book  H. 

Oil.  in. 

§  i'O. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


196 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Civil  Law. 


created  by  law  or  by  contract,  may  be  conceived  to 
be  carved,  although  the  universitas  has  no  de  facto 
existence.  Indeed  the  same  may  be  said  of  domi- 
nium over  things;  since  none  is  so  complete  as  to 
carry  the  right  of  use  and  abuse  to  all  lengths,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  barrel  of  gunpowder.  There  are 
always  some  obligations  which  limit  it. 

26.  Status  are  to  persons  what  Estates  are  to 
things;  that  is  to  say,  they  are  characterisations  of 
the  functions  which  persons  perform.  But  there  is 
this  difference,  that,  whereas  estates  are  defined  by 
the  acts  and  forbearances  due  to  the  owner  from 
others,  status  are  defined  as  well  by  those  which  the 
person  characterised  by  the  status  owes  to  others  as 
by  those  which  others  owe  to  him.  For  instance,  an 
estate  of  full  possession  in  land  consists  in  number- 
less acts  and  forbearances  of  others,  but  it  does  not 
give  the  owner  a  right  to  use  it  to  the  public  detri- 
ment, e.  g.  to  erect  a  public  nuisance  on  the  land. 
The  owner,  in  respect  of  the  land,  has  a  status  de- 
fined by  the  acts  and  forbearances  imposed  on  him  as 
well  as  by  those  imposed  on  others ;  but  the  former 
acte  and  forbearances  are  not  part  of  his  estate.  It 
is  true  that  the  status  in  this  case  is  merely  that  of 
a  simple  citizen;  the  other  persons  sharing  in  the 
status  are  the  community  at  large;  if  the  owner  of 
the  land  had  certain  fixed  duties,  as  owner  of  that 
kind  of  estate,  then  he  would  have  a  more  particular 
status,  one  defined  by  the  duties  owed  to  and  owed 
by  him,  in  respect  of  his  kind  of  estate.  Again, 
when  status  is  defined  by  duties  owed  to  and  duties 
owed  by  a  person,  there  must  be  a  connection  be- 
tween the  two  classes  of  duties;  for  otherwise  he 
has  no  single  definable  status  in  respect  to  them ;  he 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  197 

bears  not  one  but  two  characters.  It  is  sometimes  book  n. 
laid  down  that  these  duties,  owino^  and  owed,  must  be  —  ' 
continuous  or  habitual,  and  also  general  or  defined  AnaiVsisana 
by  their  kind;  as,  for  instance,  by  Austin,  Vol.  iii.,  '^'^of^Law! 
Notes  to  Table  ii.  p.  171.  If  you  hire  a  person,  lie  ch^Law. 
says,  to  do  some  single  service,  this  does  not  create 
the  status  of  master  and  servant;  it  must  be  a 
contract  to  render  a  series  of  services  indefinite  in 
number.  But  it  is  obvious  that  a  series  of  acts  or 
forbearances  defined  by  their  general  kind  is  but  a 
complex  of  single  acts  or  forbearances  of  the  same 
general  kind.  When  such  a  series  is  sufficiently 
determinate  to  be  capable  of  a  general  description, 
the  person  or  persons  bound  to  it  are  clothed  with  a 
status,  that  is,  assume  a  certain  legal  character,  in 
virtue  or  as  a  compendious  description  of  the  acts 
and  forbearances  owing  and  owed.  The  reason  of 
the  thing  extends  to  all  characters  which  may  be 
borne  by  persons  or  groups  of  persons,  even  when 
depending  on  single  acts  or  forl^earances,  whether 
past  or  promised.  A  man  hired  to  do  a  single  act 
has  the  status  of  a  servant,  the  hirer  that  of  a  master, 
for  that  single  purpose.  The  logic  of  acts  and  for- 
bearances extends  much  farther  than  to  the  expla- 
nation of  those  aggregates  of  them  only  which  have 
been  already  erected  into  a  recognised  legal  status; 
it  extends  to  any  status  which  may  be  formed  on  the 
same  principles.  The  various  status,  or  legal  cha- 
racters, borne  by  persons  or  groups  of  persons,  are 
therefore  so  many  species  or  genera  in  legal  clas- 
sification, represent  so  much  ground  won  by  legal 
science,  made  good  against  indetermination  and  ob- 
scurity. And  the  same  may  be  said  of  estates.  When 
a  status  or  an  estate  has  arrived  at  a  fixed  definition, 


198 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


it  may  be  known  by  certain  marks;  and  to  prove 
that  any  particular  person  or  estate  has  one  of  these 
marks  is  to  fix  him  or  it  with  the  other  character- 
istics of  the  status  or  estate.  The  terms  belong  to 
the  order  of  knowledge  in  the  science  of  jurispru- 
dence, and  are  modes  of  evidence  or  proof  of  parti- 
cular acts  or  forbearances  being  legally  enforceable. 

37.  So  far  as  to  the  two  heads  of  the  statical 
branch  of  the  logic;  it  will  take  less  time  to  make 
out  the  same  case  for  the  two  remaining  heads,  Deal- 
ings and  Actions.  When  von  Savigny  had  esta- 
blished his  distinction  of  civil  law  into  Sachenrecht, 
Obligationen,  Familienrecht  (reines  und  angewandtes) 
and  Erbrecht,  Book  ii.  §  58,  he  found  himself  under 
the  necessity  of  preluding  their  exposition  with  a 
"  general  part,"  containing  exposition  of  matters  more 
or  less  common  to  all  of  them.  There  are,  he  says, 
several  aspects  of  Rechtsinstitute,  (Seiten  ihres  We- 
sens),  which  are  common  to  many  of  them,  and  form 
a  sort  of  General  Part  (Allgemeiner  Theil)  of  the 
whole  subject;  "Dahin  gehort  hauptsachlich  die  Natur 
der  Rechtssubjecte,  und  insbesondere  ihrer  Rechts- 
fahiokeit :  ferner  die  Entstehuno;  und  der  Untero-ano- 
der  Rechtsverhaltnisse :  endlich  der  Schutz  der  Rechte 
gegen  Verletzung,  und  die  daraus  hervorgehenden 
Modificationen  der  Rechte  selbst.  Es  giebt  in  der 
That  kein  Rechtsinstitut,  in  welchem  nicht  die  Eror- 
teruno;  dieser  Frao'en  nothio;  und  wichtio^  ware."    In- 

o  (DO  o 

deed  the  whole  of  his  great  work,  the  System,  con- 
sists, as  we  have  it,  in  nothing  else  than  this  General 
Part,  together  with  a  disquisition  on  the  Conflict  of 
Laws.  The  special  exposition  of  the  other  branches 
is  not  found  in  it,  but  was  reserved,  by  a  change  in 
plan,  to  be  carried  out  by  separate  monographs. 


THE  LOGIC  or  POLITIC. 


199 


38.  Now  the  two  first  of  the  topics  here  men- 
tioned belong  properly  to  the  law  of  Persons;  the 
two  last  however  are  nothing  else  than  the  two  heads 
of  the  dynamic  branch  of  the  logic  of  jurisprudence. 
And  it  is  clear  that  the  ways  in  which  estates  and 
status  originate,  in  which  they  are  modified,  that  is 
to  say,  divided,  devolved,  diminished,  attacked,  de- 
fended, or  finally  cease  to  exist,  cannot  be  treated 
otherwise  than  in  connection  with  the  estates  and 
status  themselves.  A  modified  estate  or  status  is  a 
new  estate  or  status.  The  modification  stands  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new ;  and  if  no  estate  or  status 
exists  at  either  end,  there  is  no  modification,  for 
there  has  been  nothing  to  modify. 

39.  Here  again  we  are  restricted  to  those  circum- 
stances, events,  acts,  and  omissions,  which  have  legal 
significance  or  legal  consequences  attached  to  them; 
just  as  we  were  to  legal  persons  and  legal  things. 
But  the  law  may  either  appoint  certain  formalities 
or  instruments,  of  its  own  accord,  as  methods  of  deal- 
ing with  estates  and  status,  or  it  may  attach  certain 
consequences  to  natural  events,  or  events  otherwise 
extra-legal,  such  as  death,  or  going  beyond  seas. 
The  exclusion  of  natural  persons,  things,  and  events, 
from  the  proper  domain  of  law  corresponds,  in  civil 
law,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  acts  from  the  cognisance 
of  criminal  law,  except  those  which  are  positively 
defined  in  order  to  be  commanded  or  forbidden. 

40.  But  if  this  third  head  of  the  logic  is  closely 
connected  with  the  two  first,  still  more  closely  if 
possible  is  it  connected  with  the  fourth.  Legal  de- 
cisions, when  delivered  in  conclusion  of  Actions,  are 
at  once  the  bond  and  the  test  of  validity  of  all  the 
other  parts;  it  is  by  them  that  estates,  status,  and 


Book  II. 
Cii.  III. 

§90. 

Analj'sis  and 

classification 

of  Law, 

Civil  Law. 


200 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  III. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


modes  of  dealino;  with  them,  are  reo;iilated,  in  order 
that  they  may  be  so  assured  as  to  be  able  to  stand 
the  test  of  enquiry,  if  they  should  ever  come  before 
a  court. 

41.  Here  it  is  that  the  nexus  between  all  the 
four  heads  is  most  clearly  seen.  After  the  distinction 
between  the  different  kinds  of  estates  and  of  status 
comes  the  question,  whether  such  and  such  a  person, 
the  plaintiff,  has  such  and  such  an  estate  or  status. 
This  can  only  be  ascertained  by  an  examination  into 
the  acts,  events,  and  circumstances,  by  which  that 
estate  or  status  is  alleged  to  have  arisen.  That  is  to 
say,  matters  belonging  to  the  third  head  are  required 
to  be  proved,  in  order  to  show  the  existence  of  mat- 
ters belonging  to  the  first  and  second.  These  acts, 
events,  and  circumstances,  are  the  essential  matter  in 
the  whole  case,  its  de  facto  history;  it  may  happen 
that  they  show,  not  the  estate  or  status  which  either 
the  plaintiff  or  the  defendant  alleges,  but  some  other, 
different,  greater  or  less,  estate  or  status.  The  acts 
and  events,  however,  which  have  actually  taken  place 
are  that  which  determines  what  the  estate  or  status 
of  the  parties  really  is,  that  by  which  the  decision 
ascertaining  them  is  governed.  Thus  the  estate  and 
the  status  not  only  rest  logically  on  an  analysis  into 
acts  and  forbearances,  but  questions  both  about  their 
nature  and  extent  and  about  the  entitlement  of  A  or 
B  to  them  are  in  actual  discussion  reduced  to  the 
questions,  what  acts  and  events  have  taken  place, 
and  in  what  circumstances,  and  whether  these  have 
been  acts  and  events  recognised,  permitted,  or  en- 
joined, by  the  law. 

42.  There  is  another  bond  between  the  fourth 
head  and  the  rest.     Whenever  the  law  allows  a  man 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


201 


Book  IL 
Ch.  III. 


§  90. 


to  come  before  the  court  and  entertains  his  suit,  he 

is  said  to  have  a  right  of  action.     This  right  accrues 

in  certain  cases  already  defined  and  provided  for  by    AnaiVsi's  and 

law.    Now  this  right  itself  is  a  species  of  estate,  in  the    '^ 'of  Law!"" 

wide  sense  now  attached  to  the  term  (see  par.  34).      ch^Taw. 

Actions,  therefore,  as  founded  upon  rights  of  action, 

might  logically,  though  not  conveniently,  be  treated 

as  a  subordinate  portion  of  the  head  of  Estates. 

43.  Actions  were  divided  by  the  Romans  into  two 
main  kinds,  actions  in  rem  and  actions  in  personam. 
This  must  not  be  confused  with  the  distinction  of 
jura,  into  jura  in  rem  and  jura  in  personam,  which  is 
the  distinction  between  rio'hts  or  estates  o-ood  ao;ainst 
all  the  world  and  those  good  only  against  particular 
persons.  Actions,  or  the  methods  of  establishing  and 
protecting  rights,  of  enforcing  obligations,  the  rights 
to  which  Actions  are  all  jura  in  personam,  are  dis- 
tinguished on  a  different  principle  ;  both  kinds  of 
rights  or  estates  may  be  maintained  by  both  kinds 
of  actions,  in  rem  and  in  personam,  according  to 
the  kind  of  danger  with  which  they  are  threatened. 
When  a  particular  act  or  forbearance,  or  series  of 
acts  or  forbearances,  is  required  for  the  purpose  of 
defence,  then  there  is  actio  in  personam ;  some  per- 
son or  persons  are  required  to  do  or  to  refrain  from 
doing  something,  e.g.  to  exhibit  a  deed,  to  make  a 
conveyance,  to  confess  judgment,  to  surrender  a  claim. 
Whenever,  in  short,  the  estate  or  right  sought  to  be 
established  is  not  capable  of  separation  or  transfer- 
ence, there  the  reason  of  the  thinof  susfo-ests,  that  the 
method  of  enforcing  and  maintaining  it  should  be  by 
an  action  in  personam;  for  to  secure  acts  or  forbear- 
ances in  dealing  with  it  is  the  only  way  in  which 
its  enjoyment  can  be  secured  to  the  rightful  owner. 


202  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      Where,  onfthe  other  hand,  the  whole  estate  or  rio;ht 

Ch.  in.  '  '  _  ^ 

— —         claimed  can  be  made  over  to  the  claimant,  there  the 

§  90. 

Analysis  and    proDcr  mcthod  of  maliitainino;  it  is  by  an  action  in 

classmcation      ^        ^  .  . 

of  Law.       rem,  for  the  possession  of  the  estate  itself. 
Civil  Law.  44.  Finally  it  must  be  remarked,  that  we  are  not 

to  expect  the  abandonment  of  the  term  Rights,  and 
substitution  of  the  term  Duties,  in  common  legal  parl- 
ance. The  plaintiiF,  or  person  who  feels  aggrieved, 
will  always  require  some  phrase  by  which  to  express 
the  state  of  things  as  they  ought  to  be  in  reference 
to  his  own  interests,  and  he  in  every  case  will  be  the 
person  who  sets  the  law  in  motion  to  bring  about  the 
result  he  desires.  It  is  the  law  that  must  decide  on 
these  rights  by  the  consideration  of  the  correspond- 
ing: duties  which  constitute  them,  the  law  that  must 
correct  the  plaintiff's  view  of  his  rights  by  their  ana- 
lysis, the  defendant's  obligations.  These  two  views 
are  to  be  conciliated  in  the  following  manner.  Rights, 
it  was  said  in  par.  30,  consist  of  two  parts,  enjoy- 
ment, and  the  security  given  to  it  by  acts  and  for- 
bearances enforced  on  other  persons.  Enjoyment 
consists  in  acts  or  states  of  mind ;  the  habit  or  possi- 
bility- of  frequent  recurrence  of  these  acts  or  states 
is  what  is  meant  by  the  enjoyment  being  secured. 
Now  the  enjoyment  of  anything  may  consist  in  two 
things,  first  its  use  and  possession,  secondly  its  ex- 
clusive use  and  possession;  to  use  a  property  and  to 
be  alone  or  not  interfered  with  in  its  use ;  to  enjoy 
the  benefit  of  another  person's  act  and  to  be  the  sole 
person  benefited  by  it.  This  distinction  is  applicable 
to  all  classes  of  rights,  not  to  corporeal  possessions 
only,  as  enjoyment  of  land  with  power  of  excluding 
trespassers ;  but  also,  for  instance,  a  patient  has  a 
right  to  the  skill  of  his  physician,  though  not  exclu- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


203 


Civil  Law. 


sively ;  a  client  to  the  skill  of  his  advocate,  and  that      CH°n"* 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  opposite  party  to  the  suit ;  a        — 
wife  to  the  companionship  and,  in  certain  points,  the    A"'^Jf,?'4j'J",'J 
exclusive  companionship  of  her  husband.     This  logic       ofLaw. 
of  user  and  exclusion,  then,  seems  wide  enough  to  se- 
cure the  full  consideration  of  the  plaintiff's  claims,  not- 
withstanding that  these  are  to  be  judged  of  as  con- 
sisting in  the  duties  imposed  on  other  persons.     The 
intention  and  spirit  of  the  duties  enforced  must  be 
regarded,  in  order  to  secure  justice  between  the  par- 
ties ;  and  this  intention  is  made  definite  by  its  two 
purposes,  user  and  exclusion,  being  pointed  out.    The 
practical  questions  which  the  judge  puts,  in  applying 
the  law  to  any  event,  are  two :   Does  it  destroy  or 
threaten  the  enjoyment, — does  it  destroy  or  threaten 
the  exclusiveness  of  the  enjoyment, — intended  to  be 
secured  by  the  command  of  the  law,  or  by  the  legal 
acts  of  the  parties  ?     Obligations  are  imposed  to  se- 
cure benefits ;  they  must  therefore  be  judged,  not  by 
their  letter  alone,  but  by  a  reference  to  the  purpose 
for  which  they  exist. 

45.  The  logic  of  jurisprudence  seems  now  to  have 
been  handled  sufficiently  for  the  present  purpose.  Its 
basis  at  least  has  been  given.  But  this  must  not  be 
mistaken  for  an  attempt  at  a  complete  sketch  or  out- 
line of  the  whole  of  jurisprudence  ;  (see  par.  19). 
Jurisprudence  itself  is  nothing  less  than  a  picture  in 
the  abstract,  a  picture  conceived  in  general  terms 
and  distributed  under  logical  categories,  of  the  con- 
crete commands  or  laws  which  are  the  body  of  a 
perfect  code  or  statute  book.  Jurisprudence  is  the 
applied  logic  of  law ;  the  sketch  here  given  is  but  the 
foundation  of  this,  the  logic,  as  it  were,  of  jurisprud- 
ence itself.     In  order  to  complete  the  structure,  it 


204 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law, 


Civil  Law. 


would  have  to  be  developed  into  a  body  of  organic 
distinctions,  upon  which  the  principles  and  maxims 
could  be  founded,  which  in  their  turn  would  become 
the  basis  of  the  practical  commands  of  the  code.  To 
give  a  single  instance  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  the 
distinction  between  what  was  void  ab  initio  and  what 
was  only  voidable,  in  certain  events,  would  have  to 
be  given,  and  applied  to  status,  estates,  and  trans- 
actions ;  the  cliiFerent  kinds  of  events  by  which  dif- 
ferent transactions  were  voidable  would  have  to  be 
assigned ;  and  the  general  reasons  for  the  doctrine  in 
each  case  given.  Such  a  general  and  abstract  mode 
of  treating  the  whole  body  of  law  could  alone  secure 
among  lawyers  a  conception  of  law  as  an  organic 
whole,  a  conception  requisite  to  unity  of  purpose 
and  consistency  of  treatment  in  establishing  or  inter- 
j^reting  the  different  provisions  of  the  statute  book. 
But  to  enter  upon  such  a  development  of  the  sub- 
ordinate distinctions  of  jurisprudence  would  be  to 
enter  upon  differences  in  the  systems  of  law  estab- 
lished in  different  countries.  The  logical  outline  here 
j)resented  is  common  to  all  alike,  consisting  as  it  does 
in  conceptions  involved  in  every  system  of  jurisprud- 
ence. 

46.  I  come  now  to  the  form  which  the  Law  shoidd 
take  in  the  mouth  of  the  legislator  speaking  to  the 
people.  Usually,  it  has  been  already  said,  this  form 
has  borrowed  its  divisions  from  the  distinctions  of 
the  logic  of  jurisprudence.  But  this  has  only  been 
done,  and  can  only  be  done,  by  an  arbitrary  distri- 
bution of  matters  under  those  heads,  in  order  to  keep 
separate,  for  practical  application,  the  laws  relating 
to  distinct  classes  of  rights  and  distinct  classes  of 
acts,  which  fall  with  equal  logical  fitness  under  all 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


205 


four  heads  of  the  logic.  A  different  distribution  is 
now  to  be  attempted,  but  at  the  same  time  one  which 
will  not  depart  far  from  those  at  present  in  vogue, 
which  it  is  presumable  have  been  found  to  possess 
sufficient  practical  fitness,  or  they  would  not  con- 
tinue to  secure  the  adhesion  of  codifiers. 

47.  The  principles  upon  which  is  made  the  dis- 
tribution of  matters  in  public  law  are,  first,  their 
bearing  upon  the  administration  or  upon  private 
individuals,  secondly,  their  greater  or  less  degree  of 
gravity  and  importance  (par.  12).  The  second  alone 
is  of  a  nature  to  serve  as  a  guide  in  the  distribution 
of  matters  in  civil  law.  But  civil  law  embraces  all 
matters  of  ordinary  life,  and  not  only  those  acts  and 
omissions  to  which  penalties  are  attached  by  the  sove- 
reign. Gravity  and  importance  must  therefore  mean 
something  difi^erent  in  this  case  from  what  they  mean 
in  that.  We  have  before  us  a  lono;  and  heteroo:eneous 
list  of  relations  and  transactions  between  men,  each 
practically  separate  from  others,  which  we  might  con- 
tent ourselves  with  simply  enumerating.  But  for  the 
sake  of  order  and  intelligibility  it  is  advisable  to  ar- 
range this  list  in  an  order  founded  upon  some  prin- 
ciple, which  shall  give  to  each  class  in  it  a  position 
corresponding  to  the  importance  with  which  the  trans- 
actions and  relations  belonging  to  it  are  usually  in- 
vested in  the  view  of  mankind.  The  prmciple  of 
distribution  must  therefore  be  drawn  from  some 
ethical  and  general  view  of  social  matters. 

48.  Nothing  appears  to  me  so  suitable  for  this 
purpose  as  the  distinction,  established  in  §§  23  and 
88.  3-9,  between  the  direct  and  reflective  emotions. 
This  divides  life  into  two  great  portions,  the  so  called 
"material"   and   "moral"   interests:   the  former  the 


Book  U. 
Ch.  hi. 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Civil  Law. 


206  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      groimdwork  and  basis  of  the  latter.     Accordingly  I 

-^—  '       should  distino-uish  all  leo;al  provisions  which  aimed  at 
§90.  .  ^      r 

Analysis  and    regulating  solclj  material  interests,  matters  of  busi- 

classification  tit  •    t  i-iii 

of  Law.  ness,  property,  and  dealings  with  property  which  had 
Civil  Law.  cxchauge  value  alone  as  their  purpose ;  and  make  of 
these  the  first  great  group  in  the  arrangement.  The 
other  main  group  would  then  contain  those  legal 
provisions  which  aimed  at  regulating  relations  and 
transactions  in  which  a  moral  aim  predominated,  not- 
withstanding that  material  interests  were  also  in- 
volved, as  they  would  be  in  all  cases.  All  legal 
transactions  and  relations  have  a  common  nature,  as 
being  valid  in  law,  and  all  are  founded  upon  and  in- 
volve material  interests.  Accordingly,  the  laws  of  my 
second  group  do  not  relate  to  transactions  founded 
upon  moral  interests  alone  exclusively  of  material, 
which  is  impossible,  but  to  transactions  in  which 
moral  interests  are  motives  superinduced  upon  mate- 
rial mterests;  the  legal  character  of  the  transac- 
tions, and  documents  evidencing  them,  remaining  just 
as  strict  and  just  as  valid  as  in  those  arising  from 
purely  material  interests.  A  deed  of  gift,  for  instance, 
in  consideration  of  marriage  must  be  construed  just 
as  strictly  as  any  other  legal  document;  a  knowledge 
of  the  conditions  affecting  legal  documents  generally 
is  presupposed,  before  coming  to  the  consideration  of 
those  which  especially  affect  legal  documents  emanat- 
ing from  moral  interests.  Pure  exchange  value  trans- 
actions may  be  set  apart  in  a  class  by  themselves; 
but  transactions  which  have  a  moral  purpose  always 
may,  and  in  most  cases  do,  involve  an  exchange  value 
transaction  also.  These  complex  cases  are  the  object 
of  the  second  main  group  of  laws. 

49.  Each  minor  class  of  legal  provisions  would 


THE  LOGIC  OP  POLITIC. 


207 


then  contain  not  only  the  definition  of  the  persons 
and  estates  created,  or  capable  of  being  created,  but 
also  of  the  acts  and  events,  the  deeds  and  formalities, 
creating,  modifying,  and  extinguishing  them,  and 
also  of  the  actions  and  rights  of  action  springing 
from  both.  Each  separate  relation  and  transaction 
in  life  would  then  find  the  whole  law  relating  to  it 
under  a  sino;le  minor  head  of  the  code  or  statute 
book ;  so  far  at  least  as  the  variety  of  aspects  in  each 
separate  transaction  or  relation  would  permit ;  for  it 
is  clear  that  any  transaction  may  belong  to  several 
heads,  as,  for  instance,  a  sale  of  land  may  belong  to 
the  head  of  sale,  and  also  to  the  head  of  bankruptcy ; 
in  which  case  two  heads  of  law  might  have  to  l^e 
compared.  But  no  possible  arrangement  of  any  code 
can  entirely  escape  from  this  necessity;  all  that  can 
be  done  is  to  distinguish  the  aspects  and  classify  the 
transactions  under  each. 

50.  The  two  main  groups,  each  containing  a  list 
of  minor  classes,  would  then  be  these : 


Book  II. 
Ch.  hi. 


1.  Laws  reo-ulatins:  material  interests, 

2.  Laws 

rests. 


reo;ulatino;   material   and  moral  inte- 


The  Law  reo-ulatino-  material  interests  would  contain 
all  matters  which  are  so  called  matters  of  business, 
such  as,  buying  and  selling  moveables  and  immove- 
ables; letting  and  hiring;  mortgage,  loan,  and  pledge; 
shipments,  bailments,  insurance;  notes,  bills  of  ex- 
change, and  dealings  with  currency;  principal  and 
agent  in  business  matters ;  partnership ;  bankruptcy ; 
railway  legislation,  so  far  as  generally  fixed;  to  which 
others  may  easily  be  added.  The  Law  regulating 
material  and  moral  interests  would  begin  with  those 


5;9(>. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 


Civil  Law. 


208  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      matters  which  stood  nearest  to  the  highest  class  in 
the  foregoing  group ;  it  would  comprise,  for  instance, 


§90. 


Analysis" and  the  laws  relating  to  master  and  servant;  advocate 
of  Law.       and  client;  physician  and  patient;  trustee  and  cestui- 

CiviiLaw.  fjue-trust;  guardian  and  ward;  Family  law,  marriage, 
divorce,  children,  settlements;  succession  and  devo- 
lution of  property;  wills;  corporations  for  intellectual 
or  moral  purposes,  churches,  schools ;  and  so  on. 

51.  I  do  not  of  course  profess  to  give  even  the 
heads  of  a  code ;  all  I  aim  at  is  to  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing as  to  the  general  principle  of  distribution.  Such 
a  distribution  would  form  a  sort  of  ascending  scale, 
in  which  the  laws  reo^ulatino;  material  relations  and 
transactions  would  be  supposed  to  govern  those  re- 
gulating moral  ones,  except  so  far  as  modified  by 
the  provisions  laid  do^vn  as  exclusively  applicable  to 
these.  Such  a  distribution  would  have  the  advan- 
tage of  offering  a  ready-made  framework  for  future 
legislation;  each  new  law,  according  to  its  scope  and 
purpose,  would  find  an  already  existing  body  of  laws 
to  which  it  could  be  appended.  AYhen  any  subject 
required  special  legislation,  railways  for  mstance,  the 
laws  made  from  time  to  time  would  form  a  kind  of 
special  code  within  the  general  code,  extending  it 
in  a  particular  direction.  The  code  or  statute  book 
would  thus  reflect  the  actual  life  of  the  nation,  and 
furnish  us  ■\\'ith  a  firmer  grasp  over  our  actual  con- 
dition. 

52.  A  code  or  statute  book  moulded  not  on  the 
distinctions  of  the  log-ic,  but  on  some  distinctions  or 
other  drawn  from  ethic  or  from  daily  life,  would  seem 
also  the  best  adapted  to  express  law  in  the  form  of 
command.  Such  and  such  are  the  transactions  which 
we  permit  to  have  legal  validity,  the  sovereign  would 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  209 

in  effect  say ;  such  and  such  are  the  obho-ations  which  book  ii. 
they  impose,  the  rights  which  they  confer ;  such  and  —  ' 
such  will  be  their  effect  when  brought  before  a  court.    AnaiVsis  and 

Ti      •  1  •,•  /.  .  1,11.         classilicatiou 

It  IS  no  longer  exposition  of  a  science,  but  publi-  of  Law. 
cation  of  a  precept.  And  in  such  a  form  it  is  most  civiiTaw. 
readily  capable  of  comparison  with  the  moral  law, 
with  the  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  which  the 
subjects,  to  whom  it  is  addressed,  may  from  time  to 
time  entertain.  The  civil  and  the  public  law  alike 
would  thus  speak  the  language  of  a  sovereign ;  and 
both,  by  taking  duties  and  not  rights  as  their  text, 
would  suspend  law  on  the  same  principle  as  ethic. 
This,  which  was  mentioned  in  advance  in  par.  4,  as 
an  additional  merit  of  the  method  advocated,  must 
now  be  briefly  shown. 

^j.  A  law  of  "  rights"  will  not  harmonise  with 
ethic.  There  are  no  moral  rights,  in  the  sense  of 
claims,  as  rights  are  understood  in  law ;  a  moral  right 
in  ethic  is  an  absurdity;  and  for  this  reason,  that  it 
is  conscience  which  determines  and  sanctions  moral 
right  and  wrong,  and  does  so  by  commanding  and 
forbidding  the  man  himself,  the  Subject  of  conscience ; 
it  has  no  dominion  over  another  man's  conscience  or 
acts  ;  consequently  the  supposed  moral  rights  must 
be  duties  commanded  by  another  man's  conscience, 
and  the  man  who  claims  them  cannot  feel  their  moral 
validity;  when  their  validity  is  felt,  it  is  and  can  be 
only  in  the  shape  of  duties,  not  of  rights.  This  may 
serve  to  explain  a  phenomenon  which  must  often 
have  struck  minute  observers ;  many  rights,  so  called, 
seem  to  lose  their  validity  by  the  very  fact  of  being 
claimed  and  insisted  on.  For  instance,  women  are 
entitled  to  a  peculiar  courtesy  and  deference  in  so- 
ciety, but  this  depends  solely  upon  the  duty  of  cour- 

VOL.  II.  p 


210 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  XL 
Ch.  IIL 


§90. 

Analysis  and 

classification 

of  Law. 

Civil  Law. 


Procedure  and 
Evidence. 


tesy  felt  as  such  by  men  ;  a  demand  for  it  on  the 
part  of  women,  appealing  either  to  a  "right"  in  them- 
selves as  women,  or  to  public  opinion,  destroys  the 
very  thing  which  is  demanded,  the  essence  of  which 
is  freedom,  to  be  given  from  a  feeling  of  duty.  The 
acts  may  be  enforced,  but  the  courtesy  is  destroyed; 
and  how  can  that  be  claimed  as  a  right  which  is 
destroyed  by  the  claim  being  made?  Courtesy  is  a 
moral  duty  on  the  f)art  of  the  renderer,  but  not  a 
moral  right  on  that  of  the  receiver;  whenever  it  is 
enforced,  it  is  courtesy  no  longer.  The  same  line 
separates  the  Law  from  the  Gospel ;  the  law,  as  law, 
from  the  law  of  liberty  and  of  love.  The  revelation 
of  this  latter,  in  religion,  deposed  the  former  from 
beinof  relig-ion ;  the  essence  of  relio;ion  consists  in  the 
worship  being  freely  given,  not  claimed  as  a  legal 
right,  nor  enforced  by  legal  jDcnalties.  God  makes 
no  demand  to  be  worshipped  ;  were  he  to  do  so,  he 
might  be  a  temporal,  but  could  not  be  a  spiritual 
sovereign.  The  only  demand  is  the  duty  felt  and 
enforced  by  conscience.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that 
Law  and  Ethic  have  in  common  the  conception  of 
duties,  but  not  that  of  rights. 

54.  There  still  remain  two  branches  of  law  to 
comf)lete  the  entire  picture,  the  law  of  Procedure 
and  the  law  of  Evidence;  the  procedure  which  is 
adopted  as  a  rule  by  the  different  courts  of  justice, 
and  the  rules  of  evidence  which  they  require  in  proof 
of  the  matters  on  which  their  decision  is  demanded. 
A  title  to  property,  for  instance,  is  properly  speaking 
the  evidence  which  can  be  given  of  the  right  to  it, 
or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  of  the  existence  of  the 
obligations  which  constitute  the  right.  All  legal 
forms,  such  as  those  of  legally  valid  documents,  rest 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


211 


ultimately  upon  the  evidence  required  by  courts  of      i^/'^k  ii. 
justice,  in  proof  of  the  rights  and  obligations  intended         — 
to  be  created  and  secured  by  them.    Procedure  ac-ain    Analysis  and 

*  p1  ISSI  fl(*'lf  1011 

is  the  mode  which  the  courts  prescribe  for  the  par-  ot  Law. 
pose  of  bringing  disputed  matters  to  a  simple  and  Procedure  ana 
clear  issue.  Procedure  and  evidence  are  therefore 
the  regulation  of  that  judicial  action  upon  which  all 
other  legal  relations  and  transactions  depend  for  their 
sanction  and  validity.  This  is  their  connection  with 
the  rest  of  the  legal  provisions,  whether  of  public  or 
civil  law. 

5^.  On  the  other  hand,  procedure  and  evidence, 
being  rules  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  the  judi- 
ciary, are  branches  of  public  law.  They  are  the 
method  of  dealing  between  particular  organs  of  the 
sovereign  and  subjects  of  the  sovereign.  Themselves 
a  part  of  public  law,  they  are  distinguished  from  the 
remainder  of  it  by  being  the  portion  which  regulates 
the  intercourse  between  the  people  and  the  judiciary 
alone  in  its  judicial  capacity.  The  procedure  of  the 
judiciary  is  subject  to  no  other  supervision  but  its 
own,  except  by  a  recourse  to  "  positive  constitutional 
morality,"  a  change  in  constitutional  law  in  the  strict 
sense.  There  must  be  a  final  authority  somewhere ; 
and  this  final  authority  is  found  m  the  methods  and 
principles  adopted  by  the  judiciary  for  regulating  its 
own  procedure. 

S6.  It  has  been  maintained  by  Austin,  Lect.  xliv., 
that  Public  Law  itself  is  a  part  of  the  Law  of  Per- 
sons, being  a  law  of  status,  namely,  the  status  of  sub- 
ordinate political  superiors,  their  reciprocal  relations 
to  the  subjects  with  whom  they  deal.  It  is  no  doubt 
true  that  the  conception  of  such  a  status  depends 
upon  the  conception  of  status  generally ;  and  so  much 


Evidence, 


212  '      THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      as  this  foUows  from  what  has  been  above  insisted  on, 

-^"       namely,  that  the  logic  of  jurisprudence  embraces  all 

Anaiysis  and    acts  and  relatioiis  of  life.     Hence  public  law  as  well 

classification  ..,,  -,  ■■  .  t      t    i  •        i  ' 

of  Law.       as  Civil  depends  on  the  conceptions  and  distinctions 
Procedure  and  of  that  logic.      But  it  docs  uot  follow  that  public 
law  should  be  treated  as  a  branch  of  civil  law,  be- 
cause both  are  dej)endent  on  the  same  general  logic. 

57.  Here  is  applicable  the  distinction,  above  in- 
sisted on,  between  the  code  or  statute  book,  contain- 
ing the  laws  as  addressed  to  the  people,  and  the  logic 
of  jurisprudence  as  the  instruction  acquired  by  the 
legislator  and  judge.  (See  parr.  8.  23.)  It  saves  us 
from  the  embarrassment  of  having  to  classify  public 
law  as  subordinate  to  civil  law  at  one  time,  and  as 
coordinate  with  it  at  another.  The  logic  of  juris- 
prudence is  common  to  both;  the  codes  are  coordin- 
ate streams  from  the  same  source.  Were  the  logic 
and  the  civil  code  identical,  public  law  could  not  be 
separated  from  civil,  and,  not  being  separable,  must 
then  be  made  a  subordinate  branch  of  it.  Conveni- 
ence, however,  as  evidenced  by  universal  practice, 
seems  to  demand  that  the  law  laid  down  by  the 
sovereign  for  subjects  to  observe  towards  the  com- 
munity at  large,  and  towards  itself  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  community,  should  be  kept  separate  from 
the  law  laid  down  in  regulation  of  the  dealings  of 
individuals  with  each  other.  The  practice  of  the 
Roman  lawyers  will  thus  be  retained.  "  The  Roman 
lawyers,"  says  Austin,  Lect.  xliv.,  "divide  the  corpus 
juris  into  two  opposed  departments:  —  the  one  in- 
cluding the  law  of  political  conditions,  and  the  law 
relating  to  crimes  and  criminal  procedure :  the  other 
including  the  rest  of  the  law.  The  first  they  style 
jics  publicum^  the  second  they  style  jus  privatum.^^ 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


213 


Book  II. 
Ch.  in. 


§  90. 


58.  It  is  accordant  with  this  view,  that  to  each 
of  the  two  main  branches  of  Law  should  be  attached 
a  side  branch,  containing  the  law  of  procedure  and    Anarysisaud 
evidence.     This  is  itself  a  part  of  public  law ;  but,     ''^''of  Law!"" 
since  it  relates  only  to  those  organs  of  the  sovereign   Proc^e  and 
which  form  the  judiciary,,  it  is  distinct  from  the  rest      ^'''"^'''"'^^ 
of  public  law  on  the  one  hand,  while,  on  the  other, 
it  is  the  guardian  both  of  that  and  of  civil  law.    This 
classification  will  perhaps  be  better  seen  in  the  sub- 
joined tabular  arrangement : 


Table  op  the  General  Classes  op  Law. 

''  Of  imperfect    [  International  Law. 

enforcement.     I  .      . 

*■  Constitutional  Law. 


Law 


Of  perfect 
enforcement. 


Public  or  State  Law. 


Private  or  Civil  Law. 


General,  or  General 
Penal  Law. 

Special,  or  Admin- 
istrative Law. 

Law    of  Procedure 
*-      and  Evidence. 

Law  regulating  ma- 
terial interests. 

Law  regulating  ma- 
terial and  moral 
interests. 

Law    of   Procedure 
I      and  Evidence. 


§  91.  I.  The  analysis  which  has  hitherto  occupied       J^}- 
us  will  find  its  natural  conclusion  in  some  remarks 


214 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


Book  XL      on  political  actioii  from  the  practical  point  of  view, 


Ch.  in 


tliat  which  is  adopted  necessarily  by  any  one  about 
Policy.  to  act  with  the  purpose  of  ameliorating  the  actual 
condition  at  any  given  moment.  In  other  words, 
the  analysis  of  political  action  and  of  its  different 
branches  is  now  to  be  coptipleted  by  the  considera- 
tion of  Policy,  or  action  directed  towards  some  defi- 
nite end,  at  the  moment  of  its  adoption. 

2.  The  general  divisions  of  policy  are  accordingly 
the  same  as  those  of  the  branches  of  action;  and 
these  have  been  already  given  in  the  classification  of 
law.     Six  branches  have  been  distinguished,  namely : 

1.  Administrative;  Penal;   Material;   Material 

and  Moral; 

2.  Constitutional;  International. 

The  statesman  may  be  considered  as  leading  a  column 
of  advance  on  each  of  these  lines;  he  has  a  policy  to 
recommend  in  each  of  them.  His  point  of  view  is 
general,  all-embracing;  and  in  this  respect  the  same 
as  the  critic's.  Justice  and  Liberty,  which  are  the 
statesman's  final  ends,  the  purpose  at  which  his  policy 
aims,  are  the  criteria  of  the  critic,  the  tests  by  which 
he  judges  the  policy. 

3.  The  establishment  of  these  ends  or  criteria 
leaves  us  still  very  far  from  a  rule  of  policy  in  imme- 
diate and  particular  cases.  One  thing  only  is  clear, 
that  the  extreme  generality  of  the  ends  involves  an 
equal  generality  in  the  persons  or  objects  whom  the 
policy  must  embrace.  Since  there  can  be  only  one 
justice  and  one  liberty,  for  otherwise  the  purity  of 
their  character  would  be  attainted,  there  can  be  only 
one  community  among  whom  they  are  to  prevail. 
The  results  of  statesmanship  must  tend  to  the  unifi- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  215 

cation,  not  only  of  particular  states,  but  also  of  the      Book  il 

.  .  .       .         Ch.  in. 

whole   human  race,  including  also  together  with  it         — — ' 

all  beings,  however  low  in  the  scale  of  organisation,  Policy, 
to  whom  the  conceptions  of  justice  and  liberty  are 
applicable.  One  vast  family  is  thus  formed,  com- 
pared to  which  states  and  federations  of  states  are 
but  transitory  institutions,  a  family  which,  always  and 
from  the  first  existing  potentially  in  the  common 
features  of  human  nature,  has  its  actual  realisation 
reserved  as  the  goal  and  crown  of  all  political  en- 
deavour. The  ideas  of  justice  and  liberty  are  not 
only  final  ends  and  ultimate  criteria  of  action,  but 
they  mark  out  the  limits  of  the  community  which  is 
its  field  or  object.  There  is  a  logical  unity  in  this 
procedure  which  seems  wanting  in  Bentham's  mode 
of  defining  the  ethical  community  as  consisting  of  all 
sentient  beings. 

4.  Putting  together  the  two  conceptions  now 
reached,  namely,  the  ultimate  ends  and  the  commun- 
ity in  which  they  are  to  be  realised,  we  may  attain 
some  further  conception  of  the  characteristics  of  that 
final  state  of  society.  It  must  be  a  society  in  which 
shall  reign  the  perception  that  the  interests  of  every 
member  are  not  only  compatible  with,  but  also  con- 
ducive to,  the  interests  of  every  other  member  and 
of  the  whole ;  in  which  there  shall  be  full  and  final 
renunciation  of  war  as  a  means  of  settling  disputes, 
and  the  irrevocable  adoption  of  some  impartial  tri- 
bunal in  its  stead ;  in  which  therefore  mutual  confid- 
ence shall  take  the  place  of  distrust  and  suspicion; 
in  which  every  member  shall  find  a  career  open  to 
its  activity,  in  harmonious  cooperation  with  others, 
under  a  general  organisation  of  the  whole. 

5.  But  in  order  to  this  result,  in  order  to  each 


216  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  il  primary  member  of  the  whole  community,  that  is  to 
^— '       say,  each  State,  being  in  harmony  with  the  rest,  it 

Policy.  must  be  first  at  harmony  within  itself;  the  larger  re- 
sult can  only  be  realised  in  proportion  as  the  smaller 
one  is  attained,  and  the  progress  made  towards  both 
must  be  simultaneous.  The  activity  of  groups  and 
classes  within  each  state  must  be  so  oro'anised  and 
combined  as  to  leave  none  without  a  legitimate 
career,  which  is  liberty,  none  without  the  satisfac- 
tion of  its  reasonable  expectations  from  other  classes, 
which  is  justice. 

6.  The  ends  of  justice  and  liberty,  as  realisable 
in  each  state,  are  then  the  cause,  or  conditio  exist- 
endi,  of  justice  and  liberty  as  reahsable  in  the  com- 
munity of  states ;  and  conversely,  these  ends  in  the 
whole  community  are  the  final  cause  and  the  justify- 
ing reason  of  the  same  ends  in  each  state.  The  reali- 
sation of  justice  and  liberty  in  the  whole  community 
is  the  remote  or  negative  condition  of  a  true  policy ; 
that  is  to  say,  whatever  measure  does  not  harmonise 
with  these  ends  is  to  be  rejected.  The  realisation 
of  justice  and  liberty  within  each  state,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  positive  condition  of  a  true  policy ;  being 
nearer  it  can  guide  the  action  of  statesmen  more  de- 
terminately,  subject  to  the  negative  condition  above 
stated.  And  we  shall  see  that  this  narrower  and 
more  determinate  condition,  positive  in  respect  to 
the  final  ends  of  the  whole  community,  becomes  itself 
neo:ative  in  reo*ard  to  the  still  more  determinate  ends 
of  constitutional  and  legal  policy. 

7.  The  true  glory  of  nations  consists  not  in  the 
material  power  or  wealth  which  they  have  possessed, 
but  in  the  services  which  they  have  rendered  to  the 
whole  community  of  which  they  form  a  portion,  in 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 


217 


the  part  which,  they  have  played  in  the  general  pro-       book  n. 


to 


§9L 


gress  of  civilisation,  in  their  career  as  a  development 
of  the  best  mental  and  moral  characteristics  with  Pdicj-. 
which  they  are  endowed.  Their  relation  to  the  rest 
of  mankind,  to  the  nations  which  are  their  contem- 
poraries, as  well  as  to  those  which  have  preceded 
and  to  those  which  will  follow  them,  is  the  decisive 
circumstance  by  which  we  constantly,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  form  our  opinion  in  judging  their  character  and 
assigning  them  their  place  of  honour.  So  also  it  is 
with  the  policy  of  statesmen ;  a  reference  to  the  whole 
community  of  mankind  decides  our  opinion  of  the 
greatness  of  an  Alexander,  a  Caesar,  a  Charlemagne, 
a  Richelieu,  a  Cromwell,  a  Washington,  a  Napoleon. 
Those  policies  are  enduring  in  their  effects  which 
are  conformable  to  the  great  purpose  of  promoting 
justice  and  liberty  among  mankind;  no  step  taken 
in  this  direction,  no  ground  won,  is  ever  entirely  lost ; 
the  nation  which,  under  the  guidance  of  a  statesman 
who  has  made  this  his  aim,  has  achieved  a  success, 
however  partial,  may  like  an  individual  cease  to  exist, 
but  it  finds  its  true  successors  in  other  nations  and 
other  statesmen,  who  take  up  the  inheritance,  con- 
duct its  cause  to  victory,  and  keep  alive  the  memory 
and  the  glory  of  the  states  and  the  statesmen  who 
have  been  their  predecessors  in  the  struggle. 

8.  The  rule  of  international  policy  therefore  is, 
that  it  should  be  conformed  to  justice  and  liberty  as 
negative  conditions,  the  advantao-e  of  the  state  itself 
being  the  positive  or  guiding  condition.  The  first 
or  positive  duty  of  a  statesman  is  towards  his  o^vn 
state ;  it  is  only  when  he  cannot  direct  its  policy  in 
conformity  to  these  higher  but  negative  conditions, 
as  he  himself  conceives  their  requirements,  that  a 


218  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  XL  statesman  is  bound  to  retire  from  the  service  of  his 
—  '       state,  as  a  function  no   longer  compatible  with  his 

I'oiicy.  duty  as  a  man.  But  in  pointing  out  justice  and 
liberty  among  mankind  at  large  as  the  criteria  of 
international  policy,  difficulties  of  a  casuistical  nature 
are  unavoidable,  as  they  also  frequently  are  between 
individuals.  Without  pretending  to  have  a  solution 
ready  for  all  cases,  the  conception  already  given  of 
justice  seems  capable  of  removing  one  class  at  least 
of  these  difficulties. 

9.  So  long  as  the  final  state  of  mutual  confidence 
and  security  is  unattained,  and  in  proportion  as  it  is 
unattained,  so  long  will  the  necessity  and  the  justi- 
fication exist  for  keeping  the  mearfs  of  defence  un- 
impaired, and  on  a  level  with  the  means  of  attack. 
This  is  the  only  but  sufficient  justification  of  defen- 
sive war  and  the  maintenance  of  armies,  of  the  occu- 
pation of  military  posts  on  foreign  soil,  and  so  on. 
So  also  between  individuals,  the  Christian  precepts 
as  to  not  resisting  evil  can  only  be  carried  out  by 
means  of  a  simultaneous  advance  towards  obeying 
them,  on  the  part  of  all  men  alike  ;  for  they  are 
equally  binding  on  all.  But  over  and  above  such 
questions  as  these,  there  are  others  which  are  often 
felt  to  embarrass  policy,  when  accepting  the  obliga- 
tion of  strict  justice. 

10.  Now  justice  is  ascertained  only  by  the  adjust- 
ment of  claims  founded  on  the  contrary  expectations 
of  the  parties  concerned  (§§  31-33).  Between  in- 
dividuals these  claims  have  been  to  a  great  extent  ad- 
justed, and  positive  law  is  the  acknowledged  arbiter 
of  disputes.  But  between  nations,  not  only  there 
is  no  common  and  sovereign  law,  but  the  claims  of 
the  parties  have  but  very  partially  adjusted  them- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  219 

selves.  To  apply  rules  of  justice  between  individuals  book  ti. 
to  questions  arising  between  states,  and  to  treat  na-  - — ' 
tions  as  if  they  were  individuals  and  not  aggregates,  Policy, 
would  be  to  enforce  not  justice  but  a  nominal  and 
artificial  counterfeit,  justice  being  nothing  absolute, 
but  consisting  in  the  perception  of  justice  by  the 
parties  concerned.  If  the  analogy  of  individuals  is 
employed,  it  must  take  individuals  in  what  is  called 
the  state  of  nature.  Suppose  two  savages,  one  hav- 
ing abundance  of  food,  the  other  starving;  it  will 
not  be  felt  by  either  to  be  justice,  that  the  former 
should  refuse  to  give  food  to  the  latter,  but  that  the 
latter  should  receive  food  in  return  for  some  service 
or  other,  even  though  he  should  compel  this  trans- 
action by  force.  He  may  say  to  the  other.  You  have 
conquered  this  food  from  the  forces  of  nature ;  now 
conquer  it  from  me.  The  relative  powers,  brute  or 
natural  forces,  of  the  two  men  must  not  be  neglected 
in  estimating  their  claims  to  the  food,  that  is,  their 
expectations  from  which  justice  will  result;  justice 
between  them  is  not  the  same  thing  as  justice  be- 
tween men  living  under  an  established  law  of  pro- 
perty ;  it  is  one  with  it  in  point  of  nature,  but  it  is 
justice  forming,  not  justice  formed.  Similar  is  the 
case  between  nations,  except  to  the  extent  which 
already  recognised  international  law  or  morality  pro- 
vides for.  Beyond  these  limits  justice  between  na- 
tions is  still  in  process  of  ascertainment,  and  the 
statesman  is  not  the  organ  of  what  justice  will  consist 
in,  but  of  what  his  nation  now  perceives  or  thinks  it 
to  consist  in.  The  state  and  the  statesman  are  both 
bound  to  do  this  justice;  they  can  be  bound  to  no 
other.  Bystanders  may  and  must  criticise  both  their 
conceptions  and  their  conduct ;   this  is  part  of  the 


220  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  il      action  of  the  spiritual  power  upon  them.     But  it  is 
—  "       a  fallacy  in  the  criticism  when  nations  are  treated  as 

S  91 

Policy.       individuals  with  equal  rights,  as  it  is  called,  inde- 
pendent of  their  relative  powers. 

1 1 .  Let  the  following  serve  as  an  illustration.  In 
the  late  War  of  Secession  in  Ameria,  many  of  the 
advocates  of  both  sides  appealed  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  on  the  one  side  as  showing  that 
the  States  had  given  up  their  independence  as  states 
on  entering  the  Union,  and  on  the  other  as  showing 
that  they  entered  the  Union  only  as  sovereign  and 
independent  states.  Justice  as  founded  on  an  ex- 
press contract  was  thus  appealed  to  on  both  sides. 
But  this  was  entirely  beside  the  mark.  Actual  seces- 
sion destroyed  the  unity  of  the  only  sovereign  who 
could  enforce  the  constitution,  and  the  question,  as 
between  the  remaining  and  the  seceding  states,  re- 
turned to  the  position  it  was  in  before  the  acceptance 
of  the  Constitution.  But  the  history  of  the  Union 
from  its  establishment  to  the  secession  of  the  south- 
ern states  had  altered  the  position  and  the  expecta- 
tions of  the  parties  concerned.  In  1787  there  was  a 
strongly  and  generally  felt  necessity  for  union;  the 
constitution  was  the  method,  the  terms  by  which  it 
was  effected,  the  means,  among  others,  of  securing 
it,  not  supposed  of  course  by  any  sensible  person  to 
be  infallible.  Whether  any  body  of  States  would 
have  been  justified  in  establishing  the  Union  by  force 
in  1787,  it  is  superfluous  to  enquire;  since  it  is  clear 
*  that  none  would  have  had  the  power  to  do  so.     But 

in  1860  the  advantages  of  upholding  it  were  more 
strongly  felt  than  ever  by  the  Federalist  States,  while 
they  found  themselves  also  in  a  position  to  uphold 
it  by  force.     Were  their  expectations  of  an  united 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  221 

America  to   be   defeated,  the   work   of  ei2:litv-eis"lit       i'ookii. 

'  .  o      J        o  (Jn.  III. 

years  to  be  undone,  by  the  secession  of  an  interest  77- 
which  they  had  made  constant  sacrifices  to  retain  in  Policy. 
the  Union,  sacrifices  the  entire  fruit  of  which  would 
thus  be  lost?  The  Federalists  had,  I  think,  justice 
in  demanding  that  the  southern  states  should  remain 
in  the  Union,  and,  having  the  power,  they  had  also 
the  right  to  enforce  their  demand  by  arms.  I  do  not 
say  that  the  seceding  States  had  not  also  a  fair  show 
of  justice  for  secession;  but  that  the  case  was  one 
which  could  not  justly  be  settled  by  the  analogy  of 
individuals  equal  before  the  law;  in  which  justice  it- 
self required  a  consideration  of  the  exjDectations  and 
the  relative  material  power  of  the  parties;  but  in 
which  unfortunately  these  claims  could  not  be  settled 
except  by  an  appeal  to  arms,  not  because  either  party 
were  deaf  to  justice,  but  because  their  relative  strength, 
one  element  of  the  justice,  could  not  otherwise  be 
ascertained. 

12.  Relative  power,  geographical  and  economical 
position,  previous  sacrifices  and  efforts,  present  ne- 
cessities and  cherished  expectations,  are  elements 
which  enter  into  the  conception  of  the  justice  of  de- 
mands which  one  nation  makes  on  another;  they  are 
the  constituents  of  the  nation's  judgment  of  what  is 
right,  and  ought  also  to  be  so  of  ours  in  criticising 
a  nation's  judgment  and  conduct.  When  a  submission 
and  transaction  between  two  nations  is  thus  com- 
pelled by  the  stronger  of  them,  the  terms  of  the 
transaction  are  not  matters  of  favour  but  of  justice, 
not  concessions  granted  by  the  stronger  to  the  weaker 
ex  benevolentia,  but  the  price  paid  for  the  submission 
on  larger  points.  The  true  interests  of  both  contract- 
ing parties  require  justice  to  be  aimed  at  in  the  con- 


222  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.  cessioiis  of  the  stronger  as  well  as  of  the  weaker 
—  '  party.  If  union  between  the  two  states  is  the  con- 
PoiiJy.  cession  demanded  by  the  stronger,  justice  in  the 
concessions  made  in  return  for  it,  in  the  measures 
of  the  government  imposed  on  the  weaker,  is  the 
surest  guarantee  of  stability.  It  may  often  happen 
that  the  best  interests  of  states  are  promoted  by  a 
sacrifice  of  their  autonomy,  partial  or  even  total.  No 
policy,  for  instance,  could  have  done  more  honour  to 
a  statesman  of  any  of  the  United  States,  than  the 
policy  of  combining  it  with  others  in  the  Union,  after 
the  War  of  Independence.  A  similar  condition  of 
things  may  one  day  arise  for  the  States  of  Western 
Europe,  interposed  as  they  will  be  between  the  Em- 
pires of  Russia  and  North  America,  each  a  match  for 
their  united  strength.  The  perfect  autonomy  of  his 
country  is  by  no  means  a  sine  qua  non  of  a  true 
statesman's  policy. 

13.  Passing  from  international  to  constitutional 
concerns,  the  same  harmony  between  the  classes  or 
groups  which  compose  a  state  is  required,  both  by 
the  purpose  of  rendering  the  state  a  concordant  mem- 
ber of  the  coriimunity  of  nations,  and  by  the  ends  of 
justice  and  liberty  realisable  within  the  state  itself. 
The  reasonableness  of  the  first  of  these  two  orders 
of  considerations  is  shown  by  the  fact,  that  where 
a  powerful  class  in  any  state  is  justly  discontented 
with  its  social  and  political  condition  it  finds  allies 
in  the  corresponding  class  in  other  states,  and  brings 
the  governments  of  these  states  into  collision  with 
its  own ;  thus  dividing  the  community  of  states  into 
two  parties,  the  anti- revolutionary,  in  which  the 
different  classes  are  as  yet  in  harmony,  and  the  re- 
volutionary,  in  which  the  discontented  classes   are 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  223 

threatening  to  be  in  the  ascendant-      This  was  the      bookii. 
origin  of  the  arming  of  the  hereditary  governments         -^—  * 
of  Europe  against  France  at  the  beginning  of  the       roiicy. 
Wars   of  the   Revolution,   at  the    close    of  the  last 
century. 

14.  Social  and  political  injustice  within  a  state, 
even  when  the  class  which  primarily  suffers  from  it 
is  not  the  moving  cause  of  disturbance,  is  again  in 
another  way  the  cause  of  disunion  between  states, 
namely,  by  establishing  conflicting  interests  between 
them.     No  one,  for  instance,  doubts  that  the  spread- 
ing institution  of  slavery  in  the  southern  states  of 
the  American  Union  was  the  chief  cause  which  made 
disruption  inevitable  in  1860.     The  interests  of  the 
ruling  classes  in  the  southern  states  were  bound  up 
not  only  with  slavery  but  with  its  progressive  in- 
crease, and  their  hopes  fixed  on  its  final  supremacy 
over  the  whole  continent.     This  was  radically  incon- 
sistent with  the  interests  and  hopes  of  the  northern 
states,  founded  on  the  principle  of  freedom  in  labour, 
as  in  all  other  modes  of  activity.     One  or  the  other 
system  must  succumb  if  the  Union  was  to  be  pre- 
served.     The  preservation  of  the  Union  being  the 
fixed  purpose  of  that  side  which  ultimately  proved 
victorious,    slavery   was   doomed  to   extinction,   and 
doomed  with   increasing  certainty  in  proportion  as 
their  victory  became  assured.     Nevertheless  it  was 
only  the  prolonged  resistance  of  the   South  which 
brought  out  into  clear  light  this  necessity.     Had  the 
South  yielded  at  once  to  re-incorporation,  the  deep- 
seated  cause  of  disruption  would  probably  have  been 
permitted  to  continue,  but  only  to  produce  a  similar 
disruption  at  some  future  time.     A  difficult  and  pro- 
longed struggle  was  needed  in  order  to  fix  the  atten- 


224  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  il       tion  of  the  'Victors  on  the  true  cause  of  the  sufFeriuo; 

Ch.  III. 

—         which  the  struo^ffle  entailed  on  them,  as  well  as  to 

§91-  .  ,  .  .  . 

Policy.       inspire  a  sufficient  effort  to  eradicate  it. 

15.  Turning  to  the  consideration  of  justice  and 
liberty  as  realisable  within  the  state  itself,  these  ends 
become  negative  or  limitino-  criteria  of  constitutional 
action.  They  cannot  be  positive  or  guiding  criteria, 
because  the  different  parties,  classes,  or  interests,  are 
not  agreed  as  to  their  definition;  only  what  is  not 
compatible  with  justice  or  with  liberty  can  be  clearly 
seen  and  excluded  from  the  aims  of  politic.  The 
spontaneous  force  exerted  by  each  great  class  in  the 
state  is  the  measure  of  the  political  power  which  it 
can  justly  claim;  and  therefore  the  first  necessity  for 
a  statesmanlike  adjustment  of  these  claims  is  a  clear 
view  of  the  true  history  of  the  national  and  consti- 
tutional development,  compared  with  that  of  other 
nations,  in  order  to  attain  a  sound  conception  of  the 
point  at  which  the  nation  at  present  stands,  and  of 
the  course  which  it  may  be  expected  to  pursue;  to 
modify  which  for  the  better  is  the  immediate  purpose 
in  question. 

16.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that,  in  the  view  of 
the  ablest  politicians,  the  immediate  problem  now  in 
process  of  solution  by  the  states  of  Western  Europe 
is  the  incorporation  of  the  proletariat,  or  working 
classes,  into  the  social  and  political  organisation  of 
their  several  states.  The  delay  of  this  solution  is 
rendering  our  condition  unstable  and  revolutionary, 
a  condition  to  which  if  anything  could  open  our  eyes, 
at  least  in  this  country,  intent  as  we  are  on  personal 
interests  or  party  politics,  it  would  be  the  compara- 
tive indifference  to  direct  constitutional  action  on  the 
part  of  the  working  classes,  mentioned  in  §  89,  19, 


THE  LOGIC  OF  TOLITTC.  225 

together  with  the  progressive  organisation  of  these      bookk. 
classes  for  combined  action  throughout  Europe  by         -^—  * 
annual    international    congresses.       The    statesman's        Policy, 
aim  should  be  to  discover,  and  then  to  satisfy,  the 
just  claims  which  these  spontaneous  forces  of  society, 
now  transforming  themselves  into  powers,  may  make 
on  the  powers  which  have  hitherto  divided  the  go- 
vernment between  them.     It  will  probably  be  found 
that  these  claims  are  rather  of  a  social  than  a  political 
character,  not  a  claim  to  share  in  the  government 
but  a  claim  to  be  governed  well,   a  claim  to  have 
their  interests  made  as  essential  a  condition  of  go- 
vernment as  those  of  the  governing  classes  have  been 
made  hitherto.     But   such  a  claim  would  be  a  far 
harder  one  to  satisfy. 

17.  The  problem  is  the  same  in  principle  as  we 
have  found  it  to  be  between  nations.  The  people, 
stung  by  social  inequality  and  the  pressure  of  social 
burdens,  will  say  "  Now  reckon  with  me."  The 
upper  classes  say  in  their  contentment  "  Old  things 
are  just;"  the  people  say  "We  are  uneasy,"  and 
"  The  earth  hath  he  given  to  the  children  of  men." 
Now  justice  cannot  be  altogether,  as  they  say,  on  the 
side  of  the  upper  classes  and  the  old  institutions ;  for 
institutions  are  just  only  so  long  as  they  flow  from 
and  respond  to  needs;  and  they  have  a  tendency  to 
remain  established  after  these  have  ceased  to  exist; 
then  they  begin  to  be  unjust,  satisfying  the  needs  of 
one  party  only,  those  who  find  their  account  in  their 
maintenance.  Prolonged  discontent  is  itself  a  proof 
of  injustice.  Justice  lies  in  the  transaction, — in  the 
incorporation  of  the  lower  classes  with  the  upper,  in 
the  transformation  of  the  institutions  so  that  both 
classes  find  them  easy  and  fair;  so  that  both  may  find 

VOL.  II.  Q 


226  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      a  Career  ojDen  to  them,  a  life  which  is  worth  living,  a 
- —  '       life  of  moral  and  intellectual  advance. 

§  91. 

Policy.  1 8.  This  problem  is  the  same,  whichever  system 

of  government,  imperial  or  representative,  may  pre- 
vail. "  L'elevation  continue  du  tiers  etat  est  le  fait 
dominant  et  comme  la  loi  de  notre  histoire,"  says 
M.  Aug.  Thierry  in  the  Essai  already  quoted.  This 
is  paralleled  in  England  by  the  advance  of  the  Com- 
mons. But  we  must  not  be  blinded  by  the  general 
and  vague  terms.  Tiers  Etat  and  Commons.  These 
have  now  broken  up  and  developed  themselves  into 
two  very  different  classes,  in  consequence  of  the  pro- 
gress of  industry,  wealth,  and  population.  It  is  only 
the  capitalist  class  of  the  Commons  or  Tiers  Etat 
which  has  become  truly  incorporated  into  the  na- 
tional oro;anisation.  The  labourino-  class  is  still  seek- 
ing  incorporation ;  and  the  mode  of  that  incorporation 
is  the  practical  point  in  question. 

19.  When  in  the  next  place  we  try  to  figure  to 
ourselves  the  shape  which  a  government  must  take, 
in  order  to  fulfil  the  conditions  now  laid  down,  and 
at  the  same  time  bear  in  mind  the  two  general  kinds 
under  which  all  governments  fall,  the  imperial  and 
the  representative,  (§  89.  20),  it  seems  evident  that 
the  government  required  must  belong  to  neither  of 
these  with  strict  exclusiveness.  On  the  one  hand 
it  must  reject  the  habit  of  ruling  by  means  of  party 
conflicts,  which  belongs  to  the  representative  system, 
as  incompatible  with  a  permanent  direction  of  public 
aff'airs  founded  on  fixed  principles  of  action,  and 
incompatible  also  with  the  combination  of  the  best 
trained  and  most  enlightened  rulers  in  the  work  of 
administration.  On  the  other  hand  it  must  reject 
the  exclusion  of  the  subject  population  from  partici- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  227 

pation  in  the  free  choice  of  their  rulers  from  time  to  bookil 
time,  as  incompatible  with  the  full  development  of  -^—  ' 
individuals  as  citizens,  by  restricting  their  thoughts  Policy. 
and  their  energies  to  domestic  and  industrial  con- 
cerns. The  problem  is  to  combine  the  principle  of 
selecting  inferiors  by  superiors,  as  the  best  guarantee 
for  special  fitness  in  the  agents  selected,  with  the 
principle  of  electing  superiors  by  inferiors,  as  the 
only  guarantee  for  the  work  being  performed  in  the 
interest  of  the  latter,  in  this  instance  the  people  it- 
self. Just  as,  in  all  minor  matters,  the  judge  of  any 
work  is  the  person  for  whose  use  it  is  destined,  while 
the  training  of  the  agents  or  producers  of  the  work 
is  in  the  hands  of  those  already  skilled  in  it,  so  also, 
in  the  comprehensive  work  of  government,  the  final 
ratification  of  policy,  the  final  acceptation  or  rejection 
of  its  agents,  should  be  effectively  in  the  hands  of  the 
governed,  for  whose  benefit  the  government  is  carried 
on,  while  the  desimation  and  trainino;  of  the  ao-ents 
selected  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  already  skilled 
agents,  the  government  itself  already  existing. 

20.  The  principles  of  the  imperial  and  of  the 
representative  systems  must  thus  be  combined,  in 
whatever  modes  of  government  are  accepted  as  final. 
Separately  the  two  systems  can  only  be  regarded  as 
tentative  approaches  to  a  satisfactory  system.  The 
representative  system,  as  we  see  it  in  this  country, 
is  but  a  crude  attempt  at  government  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  term,  however  elaborately  it  may  have 
become  organised  as  a  mode  of  reg-ulatino-  the  various 
personal  and  party  interests  into  which  the  nation 
is  broken  up.  As  government  it  is  a  government 
of  amateurs.  Still  it  has  the  merit  of  keeping  the 
country  together,  government  and  people  of  a  piece. 


228  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Ch^hi^'  ^^^^  ^^  ^®  precisely  this  connection,  this  free  inter- 
— -  penetration  of  thought  and  aims  between  people  and 
Policy.  government,  which  is  severed  by  the  imperial  sys- 
tem. What  is  wanted  is  the  free  and  active  concur- 
rence of  all  the  citizens  in  the  work  of  government, 
without  injury  to  its  efficient  and  intelligent  adminis- 
tration. 

2,1.  Government  has  for  its  function  to  direct  the 
action  of  the  whole  community  in  all  the  several 
departments  of  its  activity;  it  is  to  the  community 
what  the  function  of  practical  reasoning  is  to  the 
individual.  The  members  of  the  government  consti- 
tute the  organ  of  that  function.  But  however  these 
members  may  have  been  selected,  and  to  whichever 
of  the  two  systems  the  government  may  belong,  the 
practical  questions  which  have  to  be  decided  are 
always  amenable  to  the  final  criteria  of  justice  and 
liberty.  This  reference  to  the  ends  or  criteria  is 
entirely  independent  of  the  form  of  government,  or 
of  the  stage  at  which  its  development  has  arrived. 

22.  Practical  questions  are  always  questions  for 
individuals ;  it  is  for  every  individual,  who  takes  any 
part  in  public  affiiirs,  to  consider  what  the  conduct 
of  the  body  with  which  he  acts  ought  to  be,  in  order 
to  determine  what  he  ought  to  contribute  to  make 
it.  Individuals  have  to  decide  wholly  their  own, 
partially  the  conduct  of  the  state ;  they  have  to  de- 
cide, but  for  the  good  of  others,  and  as  representing 
others  The  conduct  of  the  state  is  collective,  but 
its  conscience  as  well  as  its  motive  is  distributive. 
The  result  of  its  conscience  being  distributive  is  not 
to  release  it  from  the  obligations  of  morality,  but  to 
impose  conduct  dictated  by  the  morality  of  one  in- 
terest or  party  upon  others,  according  as  one  or  other 


THJ]  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  229 

is  predominant  or  in  a  majority.    The  dominant  party,       book  ii. 
which  determines  the  collective  action  of  the  whole,         — —  ' 

§  01. 

is  not  released  from  moral  obligations;  but  there  Policy, 
arises  for  it  the  further  question,  how  far  it  is  justi- 
fied in  overriding  the  moral  convictions  of  the  parties 
or  interests  which  are  in  the  minority.  "  The  ac- 
tion of  man  in  the  State,"  says  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his 
Chapter  of  Autobiography,  page  58,  "is  moral,  as 
truly  as  it  is  in  the  individual  sphere;  although  it 
be  limited  by  the  fact  that,  as  he  is  combined  with 
others  whose  views  and  wills  may  differ  from  his 
own,  the  sphere  of  the  common  operations  must  be 
limited,  first,  to  the  things  in  which  all  are  agreed ; 
secondly,  to  the  things  in  which,  though  they  may 
not  be  agreed,  yet  equity  points  out,  and  the  public 
sense  acknowledges,  that  the  whole  should  be  bound 
by  the  sense  of  the  majority."  The  question  then  is 
how  those  thino^s,  in  which  the  whole  should  be  bound 
by  the  sense  of  the  majority,  are  to  be  distinguished, 
whether  by  members  of  the  majority  itself  or  by 
critics  outside. 

23.  The  much-debated  question  as  to  the  proper 
limits  of  the  functions  of  government  is  thus  opened. 
One  extreme  view  is  to  restrict  these  functions  to 
the  protection  of  person  and  property ;  the  opposite 
extreme  to  extend  them  to  the  establishment  of  all 
spiritual  interests  whatever.  It  may  be  laid  down, 
however,  that  neither  the  origin  nor  the  scope  of 
government  is  decisive  of  the  limits  of  its  functions ; 
that  is  to  say,  neither  the  supposed  avocyfcalov  or  mini- 
mum of  government,  such  as  must  have  existed  in 
any  government  even  at  its  origin,  is  to  limit  the 
benefits  which  government  may  become  capable  of 
conferring  in    more   advanced    societies,   nor  is  the 


230  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.       scope  of  its  actioii,  which  is   coextensive  with  that 

Ch.  Ill  .  . 

- — '  of  morality  (§  84.  i),  to  impose  upon  it  functions 
Policy.  equal  with  its  scope.  The  benefits  which  are  practi- 
cally found  attainable  by  its  means  are  the  only  con- 
sideration which  points  out  the  proper  limits  of  its 
functions.  We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  ques- 
tion in  the  shape  in  which  it  was  presented  in  the 
preceding  paragraph.  The  question  as  to  the  limits 
of  the  functions  of  government  is  only  this  question 
over  again,  in  a  more  general  and  abstract  shape; 
for,  before  we  can  say  what  general  classes  of  mea- 
sures are  within  the  proper  competence  of  govern- 
ment, we  must  have  some  decisive  experience  of  what 
kinds  of  action  may  properly  be  imposed  on  a  mass 
by  the  will  of  a  majority,  or  of  its  organs. 

24.  Greater  definiteness  may  be  given  to  this 
mode  of  stating  these  questions,  for  to  attempt  their 
solution  by  advocating  any  particular  policy  would 
be  beyond  the  purpose  of  the  present  work,  by  re- 
callino;  the  four  remainina;  heads  of  internal  law  and 
internal  policy.  These  are  the  administrative ;  penal ; 
material ;  material  and  moral  heads.  Every  direction 
given  by  government  to  the  action  of  the  community 
or  of  its  members,  in  any  matter,  takes  the  shape  of 
a  law  or  a  command,  more  or  less  temporar}'^,  more 
or  less  special,  falling  under  one  or  more  of  these 
divisions.  For  instance,  sanitary  regulations  belong 
partly  to  the  first,  partly  to  the  last  of  them  ;  taxa- 
tion to  the  first  and  third  ;  education,  marriage,  and 
devolution  of  property,  to  the  fourth.  A  satisfactory 
government  must  be  in  possession  of  the  best  know- 
ledge attainable  on  all  subjects  which  immediately 
relate  to  human  activity.  It  must  be  able  to  draw 
the  line  between  interferino-  and  abstaininof  from  in- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  231 

terference,  and,  when  it  decides  for  the  former,  must      ^oo^  n. 

ch.  in. 

be  in  a  position  to  interfere  for  the  best  advantage.         -, — 
Its  aim  ought  to  be  not  to  supersede  but  to  guide       Policy, 
and  increase  individual  effort,  individual  intelligence 
and  morality. 

25.  Finally  I  would  remark  that,  since  the  ends 
or  criteria  of  justice  and  liberty  are  final,  and  not 
always  capable  of  immediate  application,  the  means 
which  may  be  adopted  to  realise  them  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  final  state  to  be  attained  by  those 
means.  This  applies  more  especially  to  liberty,  as 
being  less  determinate  than  justice.  By  liberty  is 
meant  not  freedom  of  one  person  from  the  control 
of  others,  but  the  freedom  of  his  reflective  modes  of 
consciousness  from  the  predominant  influence  of  the 
direct  modes,  whether  this  influence  is  derived  from 
his  own  passions,  or  from  his  fears  and  hopes  from 
other  persons.  (See  §§  73.  23,  and  82.  2).  It  may 
often  happen  that  to  set  a  person  free  from  influences 
of  the  latter  kind  is  only  to  subject  him  more  com- 
pletely to  influences  of  the  former.  In  other  words, 
so  long  as  the  final  state  is  unattained,  there  is  a 
certain  educational  function  in  o-overnment,  a  certain 
discipline  to  be  exercised  by  it;  and  this  not  only 
in  penal  matters,  but  in  all  the  branches  of  legisla- 
tion ;  a  function  which  cannot  be  laid  aside  without 
disregarding  the  moral  end  and  scope  of  government, 
without  restricting  it  to  material  purposes  alone. 
The  laws  upon  which  the  civil  institution  of  marriage 
rests  are  an  instance.  To  give  the  support  of  law  to 
any  contracts  whatever,  irrespective  of  their  purpose, 
would  prima  facie  be  a  policy  in  accordance  with 
liberty ;  but  if  the  effect  of  such  a  policy  were  to 
endanger  marriage  as  a  practical  custom,  an  effect 


232  THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC. 

Book  II.      which  might  reasonably  be  apprehended,  the  tend- 
—  '       ency  of  the  poHcy  to  favour  true  liberty  in  the  end 

Policy.  would  very  justly  be  doubtful.  Government  there- 
fore cannot  escape  from  the  necessity  of  forming  a 
definite  view  of  the  moral  ends  which  it  ought  to 
pursue,  and  of  the  degree  and  mode  of  interference 
with  individual  conduct  most  conducive  to  those 
ends.  And  this  in  fact  forms  the  highest  and  most 
difficult  problem  of  policy. 

26.  To  adopt  an  expression  of  Coleridge,  every 
advance  in  spiritual  life  leaves  a  dead  law  behind  it, 
at  once  destroyed  and  fulfilled.  Wherever  love  is, 
there  law  is  fulfilled;  where  love  reigns,  law  ceases. 
The  ethical  writer  has  nothing  to  do  here  but  to 
repeat  and  generalise  St.  Paul.  What  he  declared 
in  the  case  of  the  Jewish  law  being  fulfilled  in  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  is  true  of  all  law  in  relation  to  mor- 
ahty,  the  law  of  love,  of  liberty,  of  conscience.  Law 
arises  out  of  the  midst  of  morality,  is  added  to  mor- 
aUty,  in  consequence  of  transgressions  of  the  conduct 
dictated  by,  or  of  the  conflict  of  other  motives  with 
the  motives  of,  conscience  and  love,  rSv  'xu^u^daim 
Xot^iv  'Tr^oGzrk&ri.  Whenever  these  transgressions  and 
this  conflict  shall  cease,  the  undisturbed  reign  of 
conscience  and  love  begins  again,  law  ceasing  with 
the  transgressions  and  the  conflict.  Conscience  re- 
sisted is  law,  unresisted  is  hberty.  The  same  is  true 
of  international  as  of  civil  law,  of  law  between  classes 
as  between  individuals,  of  law  in  matters  so-called 
self-regarding  as  in  matters  regarding  others.  The 
furthest  aim  of  statesmanship  therefore,  the  ideal  of 
its  activity,  is  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  dominion 
of  conscience  in  every  individual,  and  for  the  union 
of  men  into  one  great  family,   bound  together  by 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POLITIC.  233 

brotherly  affection;   to  hasten  the  tune,  far  distant      bookh. 

11-11  ^"'  ^^i- 

though  it  may  be,  when  — 

&                    J          '  §91. 

"  liberated  man,  '*'^' 
All  difference  with  his  fellow  man  compos'd, 
Shall  be  left  standing  face  to  face  with  God." 


CHAPTEE  ly. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Biron.  More  sacks  to  the  mill !    0  heavens,  I  have  my  wish  ! 

Shakespeare. 


Sriv^'      §  ^'"'  ^'  ^^^HEN  we  look  back  upon  the  course  followed 

~         up  to  the  present  Chapter,  in  order  to  j)repare  our 

Practical      next  sprinsf,  we  find  that  we  have  been  constructmo: 

Sciences  and  i  O'  o 

Arts  of  action,  ^n  Art  of  life.  Practical  science,  with  its  logic,  is 
another  name  for  art.  The  distinction  between  art 
and  science  is  not  a  separation,  but  a  distinction  of 
aspect  in  one  and  the  same  thing  or  object-matter. 
That  which  is  science  in  its  nature,  in  its  results 
earliest  and  latest,  is  art  in  its  process.  The  method 
of  discovery  is  art.  Art  is  the  discovery  of  means 
to  ends,  the  discovery  of  the  comparative  importance 
of  ends,  no  less  than  the  application  of  the  means  to 
the  ends,  or  than  the  choice  between  the  ends  them- 
selves. For,  on  the  one  hand,  the  application  of 
means  to  ends  is  the  discovery  of  means  to  apply 
them,  or  of  the  method  of  application,  so  that  the 
actual  muscular  movements,  the  ultimate  steps  of  all 
in  the  process,  are  the  only  part  of  art  which  is  not 
science,  and  these  are  under  the  guidance  of  volition 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  235 

and  reasoninor  ;   and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  choice  ■    book  ii. 

.  .  1     .  .  .  Ch.  IV. 

between  ends  is  a  discovery  of  their  practical  import-         -1—  ' 
ance,  either  true  or  apparent.      The  sameness  of  art       Practical 

T  .  r»n  •  T     ,    -I       n  j1  1       •         n      Sciences  and 

and  science  follows  immediately  from  the  analysis  of  Arts  of  action. 
voluntary  redintegration,  which,  in  all  instances  of 
it,  contains  inseparably  the  two  elements  of  emotion 
and  framework,  of  matter  and  form.  All  reasoning 
is  choice ;  its  motive  power  consists  in  the  general 
pleasure  of  harmonising  framework  or  form;  just  as 
that  of  the  reasoning  called  practical  consists  in  the 
pleasure  of  harmonising  specific  pleasures.  Reason- 
ing therefore,  both  speculative  and  practical,  is  art  in 
respect  of  its  motive  power  or  its  process ;  but  inas- 
much as  it  is  reasoning,  or  conscious  volition  aiming 
at  the  true  as  well  as  moved  by  the  pleasureable,  it 
is  science.  There  is  no  science  to  which  this  does 
not  apply,  however  independent  of  human  effort,  or 
even  human  existence,  it  may  appear,  astronomy  for 
instance.  We  seem  to  have  gradually  discovered  pre- 
existing facts;  but  the  discovery  has  been  an  inven- 
tion, the  system  of  the  heavens  a  construction,  of 
science ;  the  method  has  been  art,  the  result  science. 
So  also  in  what  are  commonly  called  arts,  engineering 
for  instance  ;  practical  engineering  consists  in  the 
discovery  of  facts  of  nature,  the  comparative  strength 
and  durability  of  materials,  wood,  stone,  iron,  and  in 
different  shapes,  solid  or  cylindrical,  of  their  malle- 
ability, of  the  firmness  of  different  soils,  of  the  pres- 
sure of  water,  and  so  on.  The  skill  employed  in  the 
discovery  and  arrangement  of  facts  like  these,  and  in 
the  directions  given  to  workmen  in  consequence,  is 
of  the  same  nature  as  the  skill,  called  manual,  which 
makes  one  workman  excel  another  in  executins:  those 
directions  ;   that  skill  of  hand  which  is  so  vahiable 


236 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV, 


§  92. 

Practical 

Sciences  and 

Arts  of  action. 


consists  in  the  complete  guidance  of  the  hand  by 
perceptions,  and  the  complete  accuracy  of  those  per- 
ceptions. 

2.  Yet  the  metaphysical  distinction  of  aspects  in 
this  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  becomes  the  ground 
of  an  empirical  distinction  ;  that  class  of  phenomena 
in  which  one  aspect  predominates  being  named  after 
that  aspect,  and  the  other  class  of  phenomena  after  the 
other.  Accordingly  we  find  some  classes  or  branches 
of  science  named  arts,  and  others  sciences.  And  it 
follows  that  there  is  no  art  without  its  corresponding 
science,  no  science  without  its  corresponding  art. 
The  empirical  distinction  between  art  and  science  is 
drawn  by  a  reference  to  the  metaphysical  distinction 
between  them  as  aspects,  art  being  the  process,  science 
the  stage  started  from  and  the  stage  reached  by  the 
process ;  and  in  the  following  way.  Whatever  is 
already  acquired  or  known  is  science,  the  advance 
into  the  unknown,  that  is,  further  acquisition,  is  art, 
the  application  of  means,  dra^\Ti  from  the  already 
acquired  knowledge,  to  the  end,  as  yet  only  vaguely 
designated,  of  future  knowledge.  Art  is  founded  on 
science  and  advances  to  science,  its  constructions  be- 
come science,  and  serve  again  as  material  or  founda- 
tion for  art.  Again,  the  direction  is  given  by  science, 
by  the  '  end  vaguely  designated  ;'  the  end  in  view 
commands  the  application  of  means,  that  is,  directs 
the  art,  while  the  means  are  supplied  by  the  already 
acquired  science.  Practical  science,  as  distinguished 
from  speculative,  is  that  which  begins  by  fixing  and 
precisely  designating  the  end  to  be  attained,  and  pro- 
ceeds by  discovering  the  means  and  materials,  and 
finally  the  mode  or  means  of  applying  them  to  the 
end,  that  is,  by  directing  the  art.    Speculative  science, 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  237 

keeping   the   end   in   view,   but   vaguely  designated,       ^t?^^\J}- 
proceeds  by  using  the  means  and  materials  in  any  or        — ~ 
all  ways  consistent  with  that  vao;uely  desio-nated  end.       Practical 

^11  IT  ^1  ,.  .  Sciences  and 

further  knowledge  of  the  object-matter  m  question.  Arts  of  action. 
Art  occupies  the  intermediate  position  in  both  kinds 
of  science,  practical  and  speculative  ;  but  practical 
science  begins  by  determining  the  raXo?,  speculative 
by  determining  the  means  and  materials  ;  practical 
science  commands  and  directs  art  by  definite  aims, 
speculative  by  indefinite ;  practical  science  begins  by 
establishing  a  hierarchy  of  aims,  or  rsX;?,  speculative 
by  establisshing  a  hierarchy  of  general  propositions 
concerning  not  wishes  but  facts  of  nature.  Science 
never  knows  beforehand  where  she  will  arrive  ;  prac- 
tice always  knows  it,  if  she  arrives  at  all.  When, 
therefore,  we  are  dealing,  as  in  the  present  Book, 
with  practical  science  and  its  logic,  the  empirical  dis- 
tinction between  science  and  art  is  the  distinction 
between  encjuiries  which  determine  the  comparative 
importance  of  ends  and  enquiries  which  determine 
the  means  to  ends  already  adopted  or  fixed. 

3.  To  turn  now  to  another  distinction,  between 
the  sciences  and  arts  themselves.  Metaphysic  proper, 
or  in  that  part  of  it  which  deals  with  the  formal 
element  in  consciousness,  has  no  art  corresponding 
to  it  but  pure  logic,  the  method  of  voluntary  redinte- 
gration in  its  purest  or  most  abstract  shape.  ("  Time 
and  Space"  §  66  ad  fin.).  But  in  its  larger  accepta- 
tion, when  taking  into  consideration  Feeling  in  all  its 
varieties,  as  well  as  form,  metaphysic  becomes  ethic, 
and  its  practical  branch  becomes  a  logic  of  ethic 
or  of  practice,  a  determination  of  the  most  general 
principles  which  ought  to  guide,  as  well  as  of  those 
which   actually  guide,    conduct;    it  becomes   a  con- 


238  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      struction  of  a  hierarchy  of  aims,  combining  yet  dis- 

-^—         tinguishing  for  that  purpose  both  their  de  facto  and 

Practical      their  de  jure  vahdity,  both  those  which  guide  and 

Sciences  and  i   •'    i  i  •  i  •  •  i      • 

Arts  of  action,  thosc  which  ought  to  guiuc  practico,  practice  being 
the  choice  of  what  is  most  desirable  out  of  what  is 
feasible.  Completeness  and  accuracy  in  picturing  the 
facts  and  feelings,  the  phenomena,  of  human  nature, 
embraced  in  its  analysis,  are  that  which  enables  a 
logic  to  lay  claim  to  validity  as  an  ultimate  guide 
to  practice  or  conduct.  Where  the  logic  of  practice 
stops,  where  its  general  rules  cease  to  determine  de- 
tails, there  science  ends  and  art  begins.  The  whole 
field  of  human  action  is  enclosed  by  the  science,  but 
no  part  is  fully  cultivated ;  this  can  only  be  done  by 
art,  that  is,  by  science  in  progress,  making  further 
application  of  the  results  of  history,  practical  logic, 
physiology,  and  physical  laws.  But  there  is  no  class 
of  phenomena,  no  branch  of  enquiry,  no  art  so  me- 
chanical, no  science  so  abstract,  which  does  not  fall 
under  the  practical  legislation  of  ethic;  because  there 
is  no  kind  of  feeling,  whether  sensation,  emotion,  or 
passion,  which  is  excluded  from  the  survey  upon 
which  the  logic  of  ethic  is  built.  The  aim  or  end 
of  every  art  and  every  science  is  judged  by  ethic, 
that  is  to  say,  is  held  relatively  or  positively  good 
or  bad,  deserving  to  be  pursued  or  neglected,  com- 
manded or  forbidden,  on  ethical  grounds,  inasmuch 
as  these  aims  or  ends  find  their  place  in  the  hierarchy 
of  aims,  of  which  the  logic  of  practice  consists.  Thus 
it  has  been  shown  that  politic  is  subordinate  to  ethic, 
and  both  to  the  sreneral  laws  of  human  choice  and 
action  which  were  called  the  logic  of  practice.  But 
under  either  politic  or  ethic,  or  partly  under  both, 
must  fall  every  aim  and  endeavour  which  man  can 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  l239 

propose  to  himself,  and  every  tendency  of  which,  if      ^"^^y" 
spontaneous,  he  can  become  aware.      Rehitively  to         — 
other  branches  of  effort,  ethic  and  politic  are  archi-    „  Practical 

'  _    ^  Sciences  and 

tectonic ;  to  one  or  both  of  them  it  belongs  to  pre-  ^^^^  «*  «cdon. 
scribe  conduct  in  any  other,  narrower  and  more 
definite,  branch  of  action,  leaving  it  always  to  every 
branch  to  pursue  its  own  peculiar  methods  and  aim 
at  its  own  peculiar  purposes,  so  far  as  they  do  not 
clash  with  the  essential  ends  of  the  higher  and  larger 
sciences  of  practice.  ( See  on  the  relation  of  Art  to 
practical  science  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  System  of  Logic, 
Book  vi.  Ch.  xii.  6th  ed.). 

4.  All  branches  of  knowledge  therefore  may  be 
regarded  alike  either  as  speculative  or  as  practical, 
according  as  we  consider  them  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  object-matter  with  which  they  are  con- 
cerned, or  from  that  of  the  aims  or  tendencies  which 
they  are  pursued  in  order  to  satisfy.  But  there  is 
a  class  of  sciences  which,  from  the  circumstance  of 
their  aim  being  fixed  once  for  all,  coinciding  with 
the  circumstance  that  their  object- matter  is  best  ex- 
amined objectively,  are  properly  distinguished  empi- 
rically as  speculative  and  not  as  practical ;  the  desire 
of  knowledge  supplies  the  aim  which  makes  them 
practical,  but  the  distinctions  within  this  general  aim 
are  derived  from  the  object-matter  itself.  This  class 
contains  all  the  physical  sciences  in  the  largest  sense 
of  the  term,  including  mathematic  at  one  end  of  the 
list  and  physiology  or  biology  at  the  other.  Those 
pursuits  which  are  commonly  called  arts  are  founded 
on  these  sciences;  their  results  are  the  materials  or 
means  of  the  several  arts  and  manufactures.  Fixed 
and  definite  aims  or  wishes  make  these  arts  practical, 
as  the  general  indefinite  desire  of  knowledge  makes 


240 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§92. 

Practical 

Sciences  and 

Arts  of  action. 


the  speculative  sciences  so,  which  are  their  founda- 
tion ;  but  the  whole  detail  of  the  arts  consists  in  the 
knowledge  of  laws  of  nature,  results  belonging  to 
and  comprehended  under  some  one  or  more  of  the 
physical  sciences.  Between  these  two  extremes,  spe- 
culative sciences  and  arts  which  are  their  detailed 
application,  there  lies  another  class  of  sciences  which 
are  sciences  of  practice.  Wherever  human  action  is 
the  object -matter  of  enquiry,  there  is  or  there  may 
be  a  science  of  practice  ;  for  enquiry  into  human 
action  includes  enquiry  into  the  relative  strength 
of  motives  in  consciousness,  the  relative  value  and 
validity  of  feelings  and  aims,  the  mode  of  action  of 
these  motives  as  shown  by  history  and  experience; 
all  which  things  require  a  subjective  treatment,  as 
the  only  means  of  analysing  correctly  the  object- 
matter,  and  as  alone  supplying  the  distinctions  be- 
tween one  branch  of  the  enquiry  and  another.  These 
sciences  of  practice  are  the  subordinate  sciences  to 
the  general  or  architectonic  sciences,  ethic  and  po- 
litic ;  and  they  are  distinguished  from  the  speculative 
and  physical  sciences,  with  their  dependent  arts,  by 
this,  that  human  action  is  the  object-matter  dealt 
with  as  well  as  the  power  dealing  with  it;  or  that 
human  action  is  the  end  as  well  as  the  means. 

5.  Each  of  the  subordinate  sciences  of  practice 
so  determined  has  both  a  speculative  and  a  practical 
branch  or  department.  Just  as  the  physical  sciences, 
as  sho-svn  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  supply  the  de- 
tailed knowledge  in  which  the  arts  consist,  or,  in 
other  words,  have  their  practical  departments  in  the 
arts  which  are  their  applications,  so  each  science  of 
practice,  which  differs  from  physical  science  only  in 
having  conscious  human  action  for  its  object-matter, 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  241 

has  its  practical  department  in  the  art  of  action  which       BookII. 
is  founded  on  the  laws  discovered  by  it,  and  the  loo-ic         —  * 
of  which  is  the  logic  of  that  science.     The  logic  of      PrlcHcai 
the  art,  or  constructive  practice,  is  the  result  of  the   ArtHf  action. 
analysis  given  of  the  phenomena  by  the  correspond- 
ing science,  or  speculative  department  of  the  art.  The 
logic  connects  the  art  of  action,  the  branch  of  prac- 
tice, with  the  science  of  action,  or  the  practical  science, 
its  speculative  branch.     This  has  been  exhibited  al- 
ready in  the  present  work ;  Book  i.  contained  the  ana- 
lysis of  the  phenomena  of  action  generally ;  Book  ii. 
has  contained  the  logic  of  practice  generally,  of  ethic 
and  of  politic,  general  law^s  of  general  actions,  founded 
on  that  analysis.    We  have  now  to  consider  the  more 
special  sciences  and  arts  of  action  subordinate  to  the 
architectonic  arts  of  action,  ethic  and  j^olitic.     The 
practical  branches  of  the  different   special   practical 
sciences,  in  distinction  from  those  dependent  on  the 
physical  sciences,  may  be  called  arts  of  action,  as  dis- 
tino^uished  from  arts  of  knowledo;e. 

6.  When  we  ask  what  these  special  practical  sci-  Cuitus  and 
ences  with  their  corresponding  arts  of  action  are,  it 
is  clear  in  the  first  place  that  any  class  of  emotions, 
or  any  group  of  functions,  may  be  the  object-matter 
of  such  a  science  and  art.  For  instance,  the  religious 
emotions  may  have  a  special  science  or  branch  of  en- 
quiry devoted  to  them,  and  the  corresponding  art  of 
action  will  be  the  establishment  of  a  cuitus,  or  system 
of  religious  practices.  Every  developed  religion  has 
such  a  system;  but  since  the  cuitus  depends  upon 
the  formation  of  the  religion  itself,  the  universal  re- 
ligion of  mankind,  being  as  yet  the  religion  of  the 
future,  has  no  cuitus  yet  Hnally  formed.  Cuitus  is 
the  art  of  action,  corresponding  to  the  practical  sci- 

VOL.  II.  R 


242 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§92. 

Practical 

Sciences  and 

Arts  of  action. 


Criticism  and 
Fine  Art. 


ence,  theology,  the  object-matter  of  which  consists 
in  the  religious  emotions,  with  their  inseparable  ob- 
ject, God.  Every  practical  science  has  its  basis  in 
some  distinct  department  of  human  emotional  activity, 
from  which  it  draws  its  conceptions,  and  in  which  it 
finds  its  motives  of  enquiry.  Theology  was  origin- 
ally undistinguished  from  philosophy  generally,  as 
was  shown  in  §  88.  13  et  seqq. ;  but  with  the  de- 
velopment of  character  there  comes  also  a  develop- 
ment of  science,  and  each  department  is  then  distin- 
guished from  the  rest  and  placed  upon  an  independent 
footing.  The  effect  of  this  development  is  not  to 
destroy  but  to  renovate  theology,  by  assigning  it  its 
proper  place  and  its  proper  function,  as  the  science 
of  the  religious  emotions  and  their  inseparable  object 
or  objective  aspect. 

7.  Again,  the  phenomena  included  in  poetic  ima- 
gination have  a  special  science,  but  one  as  yet  in  a 
very  imperfect  state,  existing  in  Uterature,  not  or- 
ganised into  science,  usually  known  as  criticism.  The 
phenomena  of  poetic  imagination  have  not  hitherto 
been  analysed  and  described  with  sufficient  accuracy 
to  admit  of  a  logic,  or  practical  science,  being  founded 
on  them.  The  scattered  intuitions  of  critics  are  tend- 
ing no  doubt  to  this  result ;  and  on  this  account  I 
have  been  led  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the  ana- 
lysis of  these  phenomena,  as  well  as  to  those  of  re- 
ligion, in  Book  i.  Poetry  the  art  is  far  ahead  of 
criticism  the  science.  The  arts  of  action  subordin- 
ate to  poetry,  standing  as  they  do  nearer  to  arts  of 
knowledge,  from  dealing  with  phenomena  of  sensa- 
tion rather  than  of  emotion,  are  in  a  more  advanced 
condition ;  that  is  to  say,  the  rules  of  criticism,  their 
science,  are  more  completely  established.     Such  arts. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  243 

for  instance,  are  those  of  metre  and  rhythm,  of  struc-      Rook  n. 
ture  and  division  of  poems,  and  even  of  the  employ-         ^— 
ment  of  images,   metaphor,   and  simile,   the  play  of      Practical 
fancy,  and  rules  of  rhetoric.      The  effect  of  this  or   Arts  of  action, 
that  metre,   stanza,   strophe,   rhyme,   or   alliteration, 
on  the  ear;  of  the   combination  of  this  image  with 
that,  in  fancy  and  in  rhetoric,  upon  the  understand- 
ing or  critical  taste ;  are  matters  admitting  of  more 
ready  measurement  and  agreement  than  the  effect  of 
imaginative  and  emotional  expression  upon  the  ima- 
ginative and  emotional  temperament  of  the  hearer. 
The  same  holds  good  with  the  other  fine  arts ;  the 
laws   of  harmony  in   music,   of  composition  in  the 
plastic   and  pictorial  arts,   are  more   subject  to  ad- 
mitted rule   than  what  is  called  the  inspiration  of 
o-enius,  which  means  the  emotional  and  imao;inative 
character  of  the  artist  evidenced  by  his  work.     The 
science  of  criticism,   and  that   science  which   corre- 
sponds to  the  art  of  cultus,  have  also  an  historical 
aspect  or  branch,  and  may  be  considered  as  special 
portions  of  history  or  historical  science.     The  same 
is  also  true  of  those  sciences  and  arts  about  to  be 
mentioned. 

8 .  There  are  other  sciences  which  are  more  ad-  An  of  War. 
vanced.  One  is  the  science  of  the  motives  and  feelings 
acting  on  men  disciplined  in  masses;  its  correspond- 
ing art  of  action  is  the  Art  of  War,  under  which  head 
the  scientific  branch  has  been  included.  The  need 
for  defence  and  for  the  means  of  exerting  power  felt 
by  organised  states,  against  the  corresponding  powers 
of  other  states,  is  the  practical  foundation  of  the  sci- 
ence, and  the  cause  of  the  existence  of  armies.  The 
whole  art  of  war  consists  in  effecting,  the  whole 
science  in  discovering  the  conditions  of  effecting,  one 


244 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


general  purpose,  namely,  to  reduce  an  enemy  to  sub- 
mission by  operating  on  his  fears.     The  means  by 
Practical      which  couragc,  energy,  and  material  forces,  are  in- 

Sciences  and  ,     .  i     ,  i  ^  i  •    i       ,  i 

Arts  of  action,  crcascd  lu  0116  army,  and  those  by  which  they  are 
decreased  or  destroyed  in  the  other,  whether  these 
means  consist  in  morale,  physical  strength,  supply 
of  food,  Aveapons,  tactic,  or  strategy,  are  the  object- 
matter  of  the  science  to  discover,  of  the  art  to  apply. 
The  science  is  practical,  and  the  art  an  art  of  action. 
Diplomacy.  9.  Diplomacy  is  another  practical  science  and  art 

of  action.  It  is  the  art  of  conducting  the  public 
intercourse  between  States.  It  requires  in  the  diplo- 
matist a  knowledge  of  the  operation  of  motives  and 
their  relative  strength,  not  in  a  general  or  merely 
speculative  manner,  but  as  they  exist  in  the  character 
of  the  rulers  of  the  particular  states  and  under  the 
particular  circumstances  in  question.  This  know- 
ledge being  requisite  is  what  makes  the  science  a 
practical  one ;  the  knowledge  v»diich  may  be  called 
preliminary,  such  as  legal,  historical,  economical  in- 
formation, as  well  as  the  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  states  concerned,  is  not  constitutive  of 
the  science  of  diplomacy,  though  most  requisite  to 
success  in  it.  The  art  of  diplomacy  is  the  applica- 
tion of  this  knowledge ;  it  is  like  the  art  of  conver- 
sation, bringing  point  after  point  to  bear  upon  the 
person  with  whom  you  are  conversing,  yielding  one 
and  pressing  another  according  to  the  end  in  view. 
Diplomacy  is  indifferent  to  peace  or  war;  it  may  be 
used  for  all  purposes,  and  of  course  may  be  made 
either  to  support  or  to  obviate  the  need  of  war,  by 
gaining  the  same  ends  at  less  cost,  or  by  agreements 
to  the  common  advantage  of  both  states. 
Medicine.  JO.   The   forcgoins^   arts   or   sciences   bear   all   of 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  245 

theiri  a  special  character;  but  far  more  general  is  the  Huok  ii. 
one  now  to  be  mentioned,  althouoh  it  may  be  broken  — ' 
up  into  several  subordinate  less  general  branches,  the  PracUcai 
art  or  science  of  Medicine.  The  art  of  preserving  the  Anroraciiou. 
body  in  health  cannot  possibly  be  separated  from  that 
of  preserving  the  mind  in  health;  the  two  branches 
into  which  all  human  effort  may  be  divided,  as  deter- 
mined by  their  ends,  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano,  are 
mutually  dependent  and  reactive  on  each  other.  No 
disease  of  body  but  is  evidenced  sooner  or  later  by 
some  disease  of  mind;  no  disease  of  mind  but  de- 
pends on  some  disease  of  body  as  its  immediate  or 
proximate  cause.  And  not  only  so,  but  there  are 
many  diseases  of  body  which  cannot  be  reached,  in 
order  to  a  cure,  but  by  operations  directed  upon  the 
mind,  by  restoring  mental  ease  or  cheerfulness,  or 
otherwise  acting,  as  it  is  said,  upon  the  imagination. 
Not  that  the  states  of  consciousness  so  introduced, 
or  so  modified,  are  as  such  the  causes  of  the  cure, 
but  the  nerve  states  and  nerve  movements  so  intro- 
duced or  modified,  upon  which  these  states  of  con- 
sciousness depend,  and  from  which  they  are  named, 
according  to  what  was  said  in  §  57. 

II.  Equally  general  is  the  art  or  science  of  edu-  Education. 
cation.  In  considering  the  true  outlines  of  this  great 
subject,  the  first  distinction  to  be  drawn  is  between 
training  for  any  special  purpose,  or  calling  in  life, 
and  training  the  faculties  generally,  or,  as  it  is  some- 
times expressed,  educating  man  as  man.  The  special 
purposes  of  the  -former  branch  of  education  may  be 
of  all  degrees  of  generality  compared  to  each  other ; 
it  matters  not,  for  the  present  distinction,  whether 
the  training  is  for  a  manual  trade,  or  for  business, 
or  for    a    lawyer's  career,  or  for   an   artist's,  or  for 


246 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      £i  politician's  or  statesman's ;  all  alike  are  excluded 

— —  "       from  that  o-eneral  education  which  consists  in  train- 

Practical      iug  the  facultics  common  to  all  men  alike,  and  giving 

Arts  of  action,  them  that  harmoniously  organised  development  which 

Education,     is  independent  of  the  special  walk  in  life,  and  a  high 

degree  of  which  in  all  members  of  society,  whatever 

their  rank  or  calling,  is  the  great  object  of  attainment 

for  humanity. 

12.  In  the  next  place,  this  general  education  must 
be  still  farther  restricted.  In  one  sense  education 
never  ceases  but  with  life ;  but  in  the  practical  sense 
of  a  systematic  education  applicable  to  men  in  masses, 
it  is  only  up  to  a  certain,  though  of  course  varying, 
age  that  it  can  be  carried  on.  In  speaking  of  educa- 
tion, therefore,  general  education  for  the  young  is 
what  is  intended.  What  are  the  principles  upon  which 
this  practical  science  or  art  ought  to  be  founded  ?  The 
confusion  of  general  with  special  education  seems  to 
me  to  have  chiefly  hindered  us  hitherto  from  attain- 
ing a  clear  insight  into  this  point.  The  divisions  of 
general  education,  as  now  defined,  must  be  taken 
from  the  broad  distinctions  of  Character.  Education 
is  the  training  of  character,  the  strengthening  of 
tlie  power  of  self-control,  the  organised  development 
of  the  different  tendencies  and  dispositions  of  which 
the  character  is  composed,  an  analysis  of  which  was 
given  in  Book  i.  Chap.  iv.  Education  ought  to  be 
varied  so  as  to  suit  the  varieties  of  character  in  dif- 
ferent individuals;  each  variety  has  its  own  line  of 
development,  each  has  its  own  limits  to  the  modifi- 
cations Avhich  can  practically  or  profitably  be  intro- 
duced into  it;  but  the  main  divisions  and  ground 
])lan  of  education  will  be  common  to  all. 

13.  The  general  aim  of  education  accordingly  is 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  247 

to  promote  the  active  powers  of  the  mind  in  each  of      ^^poK  ir. 
the  main  divisions  in  which  they  may  be  displayed,         — 7 
and   to  harmonise  these  directions  of  activity  with      Practical 

^  .    .  ...  Sciences  ami 

each  other,  i  he  crude  empirical  distinction  between  Ans  of  action. 
action  and  speculation  is  entirely  useless  here.  Ac-  Education. 
tivity  is  shown  not  separately,  but  involved  in  the 
two  main  directions  of  activity  either  predominantly 
intellectual  or  predominantly  emotional,  or  in  a  direc- 
tion where  both  elements  are  present  in  equilibrium. 
The  three  great  branches  of  general  education  are, 
accordingly,  the  intellectual,  emotional,  and  sesthetic ; 
all  of  which  must  be  carried  on  more  or  less  simul- 
taneously, and  with  reference  to  the  progress  made  , 
in  each.  In  the  intellectual  branch,  the  chief  means 
and  mode  of  general  training  of  the  intellectual 
powers  consist  in  the  study  of  language,  for  this  offers 
the  means  of  directing  the  attention  to  precision  of 
thought,  by  comparing  the  different  shades  of  mean- 
ing attached  to  different  forms  of  expression,  and  by 
comparing  the  different  modes  of  expressing  the  same 
or  similar  meanings  by  the  idioms  of  different  lan- 
guages. The  second  great  means  of  general  intel- 
lectual training  is  the  study  of  history,  that  is,  the 
history  of  human  culture  at  different  eras  and  among 
different  nations.  In  order  to  this,  some  knowledge 
must  be  gained  of  the  physical  world,  and  of  man's 
position  in  it ;  that  is  to  say,  some  knowledge  of 
mathematic  and  of  physical  science  is  indispensable, 
as  a  condition  of  historical  knowled2:e.  Besides 
which,  both  mathematic  and  physical  science  stand 
on  ground  of  their  own,  the  former  as  a  general 
training  of  the  reasoning  powers,  the  latter  of  the 
perceptive.  Four  modes  or  objects  of  study  are  thus 
distinguished  in  the  intellectual  branch  of  education ; 


248 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      language,  history,  mathematic,  and  physical  science, 

—         at  least  in  some  department  of  it.     It  is  superfluous 

Practical      to  Doiut  out  how  closelv  this  branch,  in  all  its  modes. 

Sciences  and       _       ^  ^  ' 

Arts  of  action,  ig  connccted  with  aesthetic  culture,  the  second  great 
Education,  brauch  of  general  education.  This  consists  in  train- 
ing the  powers  of  poetic  imagination,  which  begins, 
or  has  its  earliest  foundation  laid,  in  the  pleasure 
taken  in  beautiful  objects  of  sight,  beautiful  sounds 
of  voice  and  musical  instruments,  and  in  the  learning 
to  produce  them ;  a  part  of  the  training  which  seems 
adapted  to  the  very  earliest  period  of  life  at  which 
any  education  can  take  place.  Most  children  either 
draw,  build,  or  sing,  naturally  and  spontaneously, 
and  advantage  should  be  taken  of  this  disposition,  as 
the  first  groundwork  of  education.  Thirdly  the  emo- 
tional tendencies,  the  moral  and  religious  feelings, 
should  be  simultaneously  trained  and  developed ;  and 
this  is  not  the  less  an  educational  process  that  it  de- 
pends chiefly  on  the  example  of  the  educators  and  of 
elders  generally,  and  on  their  conduct  towards  those 
who  are  being  educated.  Instruction  in  dogma  or 
mythology  is  not  moral  or  religious  education,  though, 
like  instruction  in  eveiything  else,  it  may  be  made 
its  vehicle  ;  it  is,  if  anything,  a  part  of  intellectual 
education.  The  aim  by  which  emotional  education 
is  defined  is  that  of  strengthening  the  good  moral 
emotions,  and  forming  a  habit  of  subjecting  the  in- 
ferior ones  to  their  control. 

14.  Such  is  an  outline  of  a  general  education 
which  would  be  in  accordance  with  the  metaphysical 
analysis  attempted  in  the  foregoing  Book.  It  is  the 
minimum  of  what  general  education  must  contain, 
to  be  a  general  education  at  all ;  a  minimum  deter- 
mined by  reference  to  the  difi'erent  functions  in  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PKACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


249 


character.  It  is  the  foundation  for  preserving  and 
farther  developing  the  mens  sana,  to  Avhich  medicine 
furnishes  the  complementary  condition,  in  corpore 
sano.  Such  an  education  ought  to  be  within  the 
reach  of  every  member  of  the  human  family,  not  in 
the  meagre  miserable  degree  in  which  it  now  falls 
to  the  lot  of  the  immense  majority,  but  in  a  degree 
much  nearer,  at  any  rate,  to  that  in  which  the  most 
cultured  classes  at  present  enjoy  it.  Tlien  and  not 
till  then  will  the  mass  of  the  population  be  compet- 
ent judges  of  the  political  conduct  and  policy  of  their 
rulers,  not  indeed  in  the  character  of  skilled  politi- 
cians, but  as  those  persons  who  are  judges  of  any 
work  for  whose  use  or  benefit  it  is  destined  (§91.  19). 
For  even  in  this  kind  of  judgment  there  are  degrees 
of  competence,  and  those  are  most  likely  to  be  dis- 
satisfied with  results  who  are  ignorant  of  the  ol^stacles 
which  may  have  opposed  their  realisation,  or  which 
may  still  prevent  the  realisation  of  better. 

§  93.  I.  General  philology  or  the  science  of  lan- 
guage is  also  a  practical  and  not  a  speculative  science. 
Its  object-matter,  language,  is  a  phenomenon  of  human 
action  guided  by  motives,  and  determined  by  the  wish 
or  need  to  express,  retain,  and  communicate,  states 
of  consciousness.  The  distinctions  in  lano-uao-e  are 
or  may  be  as  numerous  and  subtil  as  those  in  con- 
sciousness; the  phenomena  of  both  equally  varied. 
The  motives  which  have  led  men  to  choose  this 
sound  rather  than  that  to  express  a  feeling  or  a 
thought,  this  or  that  grammatical  form  to  express 
this  or  that  relation  of  thouo;ht,  or  mode  of  connect- 
ing  images  and  feelings,  —  motives  of  ease  in  pro- 
nunciation, of  euphony,  of  pleasure  or  clearness  in 
imitation,  as  in  onomatopoeia,  of  pleasure  or  relief  in 


r.ooK  H. 

('H.  IV. 


§  92. 

Practical 

Sciences  and 

Arts  of  action. 

Education. 


§93. 
Pliilology. 


250 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIEXCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§93. 
Philologj-. 


expressing  strong  feelings  by  loud  or  emphasised 
sounds,  and  so  on, — motives  which  we  may  observe 
still  at  work  in  modifying  language, — these  and  such 
motives  as  these,  being  many,  and  varying  in  their 
action  upon  different  individuals  and  races,  and  upon 
the  same  at  different  times,  are  that  which  makes  the 
science  a  practical  one.  The  art  of  action,  founded 
on  this  science,  consists  in  applying  its  discovered 
laws  to  modify  and  improve  speech ;  an  art  certainly 
which  is  not  capable  of  exerting  very  much  influence 
upon  language,  owing  to  the  comparatively  small 
number  of  those  who  are  capable  of  exerting  it  scien- 
tifically, language  being  formed  and  modified  by  the 
united  but  inartistic  efforts  of  masses  of  men;  but 
which  nevertheless  is  of  some  effect  already,  and  may 
become  more  effective  when  its  principles  are  more 
commonly  established.  (See,  on  the  subject  of  this 
and  the  two  following  paragraphs.  Prof.  Whitney's 
remarks,  in  his  Language  and  the  Study  of  Lan- 
guage, Lect.  ii.  Enghsh  edit.  Triibner).  It  might 
even  have  weight  in  accelerating  and  guiding  the 
establishment  of  a  common  lano^uao-e  between  races 
now  speaking  different  ones,  and  thus  removing  one 
of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  unity  of  interest  between 
nations. 

2.  Some  persons  argue  from  the  small  power 
which  individuals  can  exert  over  language,  or  from 
this  together  with  our  ignorance  of  the  first  steps  in 
its  formation,  that  the  science  is  one  of  the  same  order 
as  the  physical  sciences,  a  speculative  not  a  practical 
one.  Its  laws,  it  is  said,  are  as  much  beyond  our 
power  to  alter  as  the  laws  of  physical  nature ;  they 
depend  upon  the  constitution  of  the  organs  of  voice; 
the  connection  of  which  with  thought  is  perhaps  in- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PKACTICAL  SCIENCES.  251 

scrutable,  and  the  effects  of  which  are  only  seen  hi       ijook  ii. 
lano-uao-es  which  we  never  discover  in  the  act  of  first         -'—  ' 

o       ~  .  .  .  S  93. 

formation,  but  always  in  act  of  re-formation  or  modi-  rhiioi^T. 
fication.  Considerations  like  these  do  not  appear  to 
me  conclusive  against  holdinc^  the  science  of  language 
to  be  a  practical  one.  Practice  means,  not  that  the 
phenomena  included  by  it  are  entirely  due  to  volition, 
but  that  they  are  phenomena  making  part  of  the 
same  conscious  agents  who  exert  the  volition.  This 
is  the  case  with  the  phenomena  of  language ;  the  spon- 
taneous actions  of  the  vocal  organs,  dependent  upon 
physical  structure  and  function,  and  so  far  falling 
under  physical  science,  are  all  of  them  modified  and 
guided  by  volition  before  becoming  language;  and 
those  of  them  that  are  not  so  modified  are  not  lan- 
guage. Language  means  sounds  expressing  feeling 
or  thought.  The  spontaneous  connection  of  vocal 
sounds  with  feelings  and  images,  caused  by  the  trans- 
mission of  some  stimulus  from  the  central  nervous 
organs  to  the  nerves  of  the  organs  of  voice,  is  the 
ground  and  material  which,  when  perceived,  attended 
to,  and  guided  by  purpose,  that  is,  when  it  has  be- 
come volitional  from  being  spontaneous,  becomes  lan- 
guage. A  definite  sound  is  then  and  thus  appropri- 
ated to  a  definite  feelino;  or  imaoe.  To  trace  these 
steps,  the  earliest  purposes  or  volitions,  in  connect- 
ing sounds  with  images  or  feelings,  whether  they 
are  the  same  in  every  language,  or  different  in  dif- 
ferent families,  or  races,  is  precisely  the  problem  of 
the  Origin  of  Language.  And  if  this  is  true  of  lan- 
guage at  its  origin,  it  is  a  fortiori  true  of  it  at  every 
subsequent  stage.  From  beginning  to  end  the  science 
of  language  is  a  practical  science,  resting  indeed 
upon,  but  not  confovmded  with,  the  physiology  of  the 


252  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

c^h'^iv'      ^rgai^s  subserving  it,  which  is  a  part  of  speculative 
—         science. 

^  9o. 

Philology.  J.  The  view  which  renounces  seeking  the  deter- 

mining causes  of  language  in  voluntary  human  action, 
since  there  is  no  other  assignable  source  of  its  deter- 
minations, would  present  us,  not  with  a  science,  but 
with  a  history  of  language  or  of  languages.  A 
classification  of  the  phenomena  as  accompanying  or 
succeeding  each  other  would  be  all  that  could  be 
reached.  It  is,  I  suspect,  this  historical  aspect  of  the 
study  which  those  have  had  in  view  who  would  paral- 
lel this  with  the  physical  sciences.  The  certainty 
and  invariability  of  the  phenomena  of  language;  their 
comparative  immunity  from  alteration  by  caprice  of 
individuals;  their  dependence  onlj^  or  chiefly  upon 
causes  acting  over  large  masses  of  men,  such  as  the 
opening  of  foreign  commerce,  conquest,  emigration ; 
the  analogy  between  the  development  of  languages 
of  different  stocks ;  the  similarity  between  early  and 
late  developments  of  languages  of  the  same  stock ; 
are  phenomena  which  make  the  laws  of  language 
seem  like  those  of  physical  growth  .and  structure, 
while  at  the  same  time  the}'  are  all  phenomena  which 
may  be  included  in  the  history,  without  being  in- 
cluded in  the  science,  of  language. 

4.  Language  being  the  expression  of  conscious- 
ness, we  should  expect  it  to  exhibit  phenomena  with 
distinctions  corresponding  to  those  of  consciousness. 
To  trace  this  correspondence  belongs  to  the  science 
of  language,  not  to  the  mere  history  of  it.  The 
generality  of  the  phenomena  of  language,  that  is, 
their  coextensiveness,  potential  at  least,  with  con- 
sciousness, a  coextensiveness  which  they  share  with 
the  objective  world,  is  the  circumstance  which  justi- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  rUxiCTICAL  SCIENCES. 


253 


fies,  and  indeed  compels,  their  treatment  by  direct  ^'^'^'^y^' 
application  of  distinctions  discovered  in  conscious-  — 
ness  by  metapliysic.  The  actual  steps  in  the  growth  PMioiogj-. 
and  development  of  language  depend  on  the  actual 
course  of  the  volitions  which  guide  it;  the  logical 
analysis  of  its  phenomena  statically,  at  any  or  all 
stages  of  its  growth,  can  only  be  discovered  by  the 
distinctions  applicable  statically  to  the  feelings  and 
imaofes  which  are  the  content  of  these  volitions.  And 
accordingly  it  is  found  that  the  whole  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  philology  fall,  in  its  actual  treatment  by 
philologists,  under  the  two  heads  of  etymology  and 
grammar;  etymology  comprising  whatever  relates  to 
the  grouping  of  sounds  into  syllables  and  words,  and 
grammar  whatever  relates  to  the  correspondence  be- 
tween the  perception  and  the  sign,  and  between  the 
sequence  of  perceptions  and  that  of  signs.  Etymology 
thus  contains  the  laws  of  composition  and  decompo- 
sition, of  roots,  affixes,  prefixes,  infixes;  and  gram- 
mar the  distinctions,  1st,  of  the  parts  of  speech,  as 
they  are  called,  2nd,  of  their  structural  changes  cor- 
responding to  the  general  structure  of  thought,  and 
8rd,  of  the  changes  in  structure  of  sentences  and 
periods  corresponding  to  the  transient  changes  in  the 
flow  of  thought. 

5.  The  whole  of  the  phenomena  is  included  under 
either  head,  but  from  a  diff'erent  point  of  view  in 
each.  Etymology  is  dominated  l3y  the  consideration 
of  the  matter,  the  sounds,  of  language ;  grammar  by 
that  of  the  form,  the  time  and  space  relations  which 
difi^erent  sounds  are  appropriated  to  express.  Ety- 
mology traces  the  decomposition  and  recomposition 
of  the  forms  of  sound,  the  syllables  and  words,  of  a 
language,  discovers  the  history  and  sequence  of  these 


254  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

BooKiL      chano;es,  includino-  those  due  to  chano-es  in  thouo-lit 

Ch.  IV.  . 

— '  and  feeling  expressed  by  them,  as  well  as  those  due 
Ph'iioiogj'.  to  motives  of  ease  and  satisfaction  in  pronunciation, 
and  of  accuracy  and  euphony  in  sound.  Its  materials 
are  gathered  from  the  history  of  language,  which  it 
endeavours  to  reduce  to  science  by  discovering  the 
motives  of  each  change  or  class  of  changes.  Gram- 
mar, on  the  other  hand,  considering  the  relations  of 
sounds  to  the  feelings  and  thoughts  expressed  by 
them,  regards  its  phenomena  statically,  taking  a  lan- 
guage to  examine  as  it  exists  at  any  one  time;  and 
is  throus^hout  loo'ical  and  analvtical  in  its  method, 
science  not  history;  the  history  of  grammatical  de- 
velopment falling  properly  under  etymology. 

6.  The  grammatical  distinctions  and  structure  of 
a  lano-uao;e  reveal  the  distinctions  and  structure  of 
thouoht,  the  looic,  which  has  become  the  ruling 
framework  of  the  mind  of  the  people  speaking  it. 
Hence  the  doctrine  established  among  philologists, 
that  it  is  the  grammar  and  not  the  etymology  which 
distinguishes  one  lano-uao-e  from  another;  the  race 
which  imposes  its  grammar  on  a  mixed  language 
spoken  in  common  by  two  or  more  races,  not  the 
race  which  mtroduces  the  greatest  number  of  its  own 
words,  is  the  race  which  is  held  to  impose  its  lan- 
guage on  the  others.  Different  families  and  races 
have  different  logics,  in  the  sense  of  the  term  just 
employed;  some  give  more  prominence  to  some  re- 
lations or  forms  of  thought,  others  to  others;  some 
distinguish  accurately  and  minutely,  others  vaguely 
and  with  less  minuteness.  But  in  attempting  to  esta- 
blish a  o-eneral  framework  of  loaical  distinctions  as  a 
test  applicable  to  the  gramm.irs  of  different  languages, 
by  which  we  may  judge  of  their  relative  grammatical 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


255 


fulness  and  precision,  we  must  approach  the  question 
from  the  side  of  consciousness,  and  its  metaphysical 
distinctions,  just  as  has  ah'eady  been  the  case  in  dis- 
tinguishing etymology  from  grammar.  The  distinc- 
tions of  grammar  must  be  founded  on  distinctions  in 
the  formal  element  of  consciousness,  or  on  observed 
relations  between  states  of  consciousness,  which  ulti- 
mately depend  on  such  distinctions. 

7.  Grammar  is  the  theory  of  the  functions  of 
sounds,  that  is,  of  sounds  as  expressing  meanings. 
But  in  what  does  the  meaning  of  sounds  consist? 
In  the  imao'cs  and  feelino;s  attached  to  them.  How 
attached?  By  habitual  connection  between  sound 
and  meaning.  Here  is  the  point  of  connection,  the 
common  source,  from  which  flow"  lano;uao;e  and  lo2:ic. 
An  articulated  sound  uttered  is  prompted  by  a  mean- 
ing in  the  brain;  the  same  heard  recalls  by  associa- 
tion the  same  meaning,  in  the  same  or  another  brain. 
The  act  of  utterance,  and  also  the  impression  of  hear- 
ing, is  an  additional,  but  closely  connected,  pheno- 
menon, which  gives  fixity  to  the  meaning  which  would 
otherwise  be  less  recoo;nisable  and  more  vao;ue:  it 
ascertains  the  meaning.  From  the  close  connection 
between  the  nerve  apparatus  of  speech,  and  that  of 
hearing,  with  the  brain,  the  scat  of  meanings,  comes 
the  special  aptitude  which  spoken  and  heard  lan- 
guage has  to  serve  as  the  expression  and  support, 
the  ascertainer,  of  thoughts  and  feelings.  Now  Logic 
is  the  regula  of  the  sequences  in  meanings,  that  is, 
in  thoughts  and  feelings;  Grammar  the  regula  of 
sounds  and  lano-uasre.  Grammar  is  the  lomc  of  Ian- 
guage.  But  both  depend  upon  the  laws  of  redin- 
tegration and  association  in  thoughts  and  feelings. 

8.  Grammar  then  being  the  theory  of  the  func- 


iJooK  n. 

Ch.  IV. 

§93. 
Philologj'. 


Parts  of 
Speech. 


256  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  iL      tions  of  sounds,   its  first  province  is  to  distinguish 
—         sounds  into  classes  corresponding^  to  the  several  kinds 

§  93.  ^  _  '-  ^  .  . 

Philology,  of  function  to  which  they  are  applied ;  in  other  words, 
Parts  of  to  distinguish  the  several  parts  of  speech.  And  first, 
what  is  the  distinction  in  thought  which  is  expressed 
by  the  distinction  of  noun  and  verb  ?  Or  in  other 
words,  what  are  the  functions  of  thought  which  these 
two  classes  of  words  are  the  means  of  expressing  ? 
It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  distinction  between  an  ob- 
ject considered  statically  and  one,  perhaps  the  same 
object,  considered  dynamically;  an  object  fixed  in 
thought,  sundered  from  what  is  before  and  after,  and 
an  object  moving  or  acting.  The  first  depends  ulti- 
mately upon  space,  since  a  portion  of  time  is  sundered 
from  time  before  and  after  it  only  by  applying  to  it 
the  logic  of  space,  a  surface  seen  simultaneously ;  any 
event  may  be  considered  statically,  and  the  name  for 
it  as  so  considered  is  a  noun.  A  similar  event,  ob- 
ject, or  thing,  considered  in  action,  or  moving  onward 
in  time,  is  a  verb  in  language.  The  verb  does  not 
express  action  or  movement  alone,  nor  even  this  or 
that  particular  action;  it  expresses  an  object  acting 
or  moving.  A  verb  is  a  noun  in  motion,  a  noun  is 
a  verb  at  rest.  The  selection  and  appropriation  of 
forms  of  sound  to  express  these  functions  of  thought, 
or  different  modes  of  perception,  in  different  lan- 
guages, are  questions  for  etymology;  but  for  ety- 
mology taking  into  account  causes  or  motives  of  both 
kinds,  logical  as  well  as  material. 

9.  The  same  word,  according  to  its  modifications, 
or  relative  position  among  others,  serves  either  as 
verb  or  as  noun,  indicates  either  an  action  taken 
statically,  e.  g.  the  infinitive  in  Greek,  the  participle 
in   English,   or   an    object   taken    dynamically,   thus 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  257 

makino"  a  verb  of  a  noun,   as,   in  Enoii^^h,  mark,  a      book  it, 
noun,  is  also  the  verb  mark,  to  set  a  mark  upon  a         -^— ' 

•    •  1  §  •'3- 

thing.  So  also  participles  are  formed  from  nouns,  Phiioiogy. 
e.  g.  hoofed,  horned,  meaning  furnished  with  hoofs  Parts  of 
or  horns.  Participles  arise  from  an  abstraction  of  ^^^*^'' 
the  dynamical  function  of  their  verbs  and  a  generali- 
sation of  these  functions  for  any  objects  indifferently; 
the  dynamical  quality  of  the  object,  which  the  verb 
expresses  only  as  involved  in  its  object,  is  separated 
from  this  and  set  free  to  combine  with  other  objects, 
as  a  particular  quality  or  mode  of  action  appearing 
in  or  exercised  by  those  objects.  Participles  are  to 
verbs  what  adjectives  are  to  nouns;  but  the  qualities 
expressed  by  the  former  are  dynamical,  modes  of 
action  ;  those  expressed  by  the  latter  are  statical, 
fixed  qualities  either  of  sensational,  emotional,  or  in- 
tellectual nature,  which  in  combination  with  others 
compose  the  statical  object  expressed  by  the  noun 
substantive.  Adjectives  are  words  used  to  express 
the  qualities  composing  or  inherent  in  remote  objects 
of  perception;  which  are  the  chief  of  those  which 
are  expressed  by  nouns  substantive.  But  any  quality 
taken  by  itself,  yet  always  in  some  form  of  time  and 
space,  is  a  complete  object,  and  may  be  the  object 
expressed  by  a  noun  substantive.  The  distinction 
between  nouns  substantive  and  adjective  is,  that  the 
latter  express  qualities  as  requiring  union  with  others 
in  a  remote  or  independent  object;  the  former  ex- 
press the  same  qualities  as  objects  already  complete 
or  independent.  Participles  are  for  verbs,  in  this 
respect  also,  the  same  thing  as  adjectives  for  nouns, 
only  that  the  qualities  are  dynamically  not  statically 
taken.      Here  again  it  is  a  question  for  the  etymo- 

VOL.  II.  s 


258  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      loo;ist  to  find  how  far,  and  by  what  combinations  of 

Ch.  IV.  Ci  .... 

—         sound,  these  further  distinctions  in  the  statical  and 
PhUoiogj'.     dynamical  functions  of  thought  have  been  effected  by 
Parts  of      different  languao^es. 

Speech.  ^       » 

10.  We  must  not  expect  to  find  in  language  sepa- 
rate sounds  expressing  time  or  space  apart  from  feel- 
ing, or  feeling  apart  from  time  or  space;  empirical 
or  complete  objects,  being  the  earhest  in  the  history 
of  consciousness,  must  be  the  earliest  things  expressed 
by  words.  Time  and  space  relations  between  two  or 
more  empirical  objects,  or  states  of  consciousness, 
being  expressed  by  words,  these  words  may  after- 
wards be  generalised  so  as  to  express  the  same  or 
similar  relations  between  any  objects,  or  states  of 
consciousness,  indifferently.  And  these  words  may 
either  remain  separate,  as  in  the  case  of  prepositions 
and  conjunctions,  or  may  be  conjoined  to  other  words, 
as  case  and  tense  endings ;  while  the  same  relations 
may  be  expressed  by  other  means  in  other  languages, 
as  for  instance  by  insertions  or  vowel  changes  within 
the  principal  words,  or  by  changes  in  the  position  of 
the  words  in  the  sentence. 

1 1 .  The  distinction  between  the  statical  and  dy- 
namical modes  of  perception  gives  the  distinction 
between  noun  and  verb  ;  that  between  denotation 
and  connotation  (in  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  use  of  the  terms) 
gives  the  distinction  between  pronoun  and  noun. 
The  pronoun  simply  denotes  or  designates,  abstract- 
ing from  the  qualities,  or  connotation,  of  the  object 
denoted.  The  meaning  of  pronouns  is  position  in 
space  or  time;  hie,  iste,  ille.  When  emphasised,  so 
as  to  convey  meaning,  this  is  done  by  a  recalling  of 
some  part  of  the  connotation,  or  qualities,  of  the 
thing  or  person  denoted.      I,  thou,  he,  are  purely 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


259 


denotative  ;  emphasis  alone  recalls  the  qualities  of 
the  persons  indicated. 

12.  Demonstrative  pronouns  attached  to  nouns 
are  definitive  of  them  to  a  certain  extent ;  they  are 
then  called  articles.  A  noun  without  any  article 
attached  denotes  its  whole  connotation,  the  whole 
class  indicated  by  its  name,  but  in  an  entirely  ab- 
stract, indefinite,  manner,  leaving  it  undetermined, 
and  to  be  gathered  from  the  context,  whether  one, 
several,  or  all  instances  of  the  thing  are  meant ;  as 
in  the  line  from  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Guido,  634, 

"  And  the  Pope  breaks  talk  with  ambassador, 
Bids  aside  bishop," — 

as  if  he  had  said  '  an  ambassador  for  instance,'  '  a 
bishop  for  instance.'  The  noun  becomes  what  may 
be  called  an  aorist  noun;  and  this  form  of  its  use  may 
be  compared  with  that  of  the  aorist  tense  in  Greek 
verbs  to  signify  repeated  or  habitual  action,  indefi- 
nite only  in  point  of  the  precise  moment  of  past  time 
to  which  it  is  referred;  as  for  instance  in  Hesiod's 
description  of  the  Muses  on  Helicon,  Theogonia,  5. 

*  *  * 

aKpordruj  'EX/xffli//  ^opovg  Ivivoiyigavro 

xaXoug,  'iiJbipoivrag'  s-irs^'odoiravTo  Si  'Troffffi'v. 

With  the  indefinite  article,  as  it  is  called,  the  noun 
denotes  one  of  the  class  named  by  it,  but  does  not 
indicate  Avhich;  with  the  definite  article,  it  denotes 
one,  and  which  one,  in  time  or  space  position,  of  that 
class. 

13.  All  pronouns  refer  to  some  thing  or  person 
with  qualities  or  connotation.  When  it  is  intended 
to  refer  to  this  connotation  and  to  add  something  to 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 

§93. 
Philology. 

Parts  of 
Speech. 


260  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Cif^v'      ^^'  ^^  ^^  ^^  connect  an  image  which  is  coming  with 

—         one  which  is  past,  even  though  the  past  image  is  as 

Philology,     jqi  entirely  provisional,  a  denotation  expressed  solely 

Parts  of  |3y  ^  pronoun,  then  this  past  image  is  expressed  by 
a  relative  pronoun.  The  relative  pronoun  expresses 
movement  just  as  much  as  the  verb  does ;  but  with 
a  further  distinction,  namely,  movement  from  one 
thing  to  another;  it  carries  on  the  thought  by  con- 
nectino^  what  is  goino;  to  be  said  with  what  has  been 
said,  and  expressing  a  sameness  between  the  two,  id 
quod,  hoc  illud.  The  noun  itself  may  have  been  pre- 
viously given,  or  it  may  be  given  only  subsequently. 
Hence  the  use  of  the  relative  in  questions;  since 
when  you  ask  Who?  What?  you  ask  for  a  further 
connotation  of  an  object  or  person  already  in  your 
mind.  Whatever  can  be  treated  as  a  noun  can  be 
denoted  by  a  relative  pronoun,  and  conversely ;  posi- 
tion in  time  and  space,  for  instance,  modifications  of 
things  and  actions;  and  accordingly  there  are  re- 
lative adverbs,  where,  when,  and  relative  adjectives, 
qualis. 

14.  In  pronouns  first  appears  the  cardinal  dis- 
tinction between  object  and  subject.  The  pronoun 
of  the  first  person  is  the  denotation  of  the  Subject, 
of  Avhich  the  whole  subjective  aspect  of  things  is  the 
connotation.  Ego  is  the  pure  denotation  of  the  sub- 
jective aspect.  All  other  nouns  and  pronouns  are 
objective  to  the  speaker;  but  the  distinction  of  the 
second  person  from  the  third  depends  upon  the  prior 
distinction  of  the  first  from  the  second  and  third  to- 
gether, that  is,  from  objects  as  such.  Those  objects 
in  which  consciousness  is  recognised,  or  which  are 
recognised  as  the  seat  of  consciousness,  the  centre  of 
a  subjective  world,  are  addressed  or  spoken  of  in  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  2G1 

second  person;  the  use  of  the  second  person  is  the       bookii. 
expression    of  this    recognition.     Besides   pronouns,         — ' 
verbs  are  the  only  parts  of  speech  which  have  per-      Phiioiogy. 
sons;    for  verbs   alone  can   distinguish   the   speaker       Parts  of 
from  things  objective  to  him.     The  verb  is  that  part         ^^ 
of  speech  which  expresses  the  continuance  of  action 
in  time;  and   when   this   action  is  part  of  the  very 
chain  of  thought  and  feeling  to  which  the  speech  it- 
self belongs,  when  the  action  is  self-describing  and 
so  far  as  it  is  self-describing,  the  verb  is  in  the  first 
person.     The  verb  in  the  first  person  is  the  gram- 
matical  form  which   expresses   the   identity  of  the 
agent  sj^oken  of  and  the  agent  speaking.     The  dis- 
tinction of  the  subjective  and  objective  aspects  is  thus 
found  in  the  distinction  of  the  first  from  the  other 
persons  in  pronouns  and  verbs.     But  this  distinction 
is  farther  elaborated  in  the  use  of  verbs  and  their 
adjuncts,  as  will  shortly  be  shown  under  the  second 
head. 

15.  The  distinction  between  chief  and  subordinate 
conditions,  between  the  qualities  of  objects  or  actions 
and  the  modifications  of  these  qualities,  is  expressed 
by  means  of  adverbs,  which  may  properly  be  called 
modal  particles.  The  modes  of  which  things  are  sus- 
ceptible are  innumerable ;  hence  there  are  adverbs  of 
all  kinds, — adverbs  of  place,  of  time,  and  of  quality ; 
and  hence  the  usual  derivation  of  adverbs  from  ad- 
jectives, as 

"  A  being  darkly  wise,  and  rudely  great." 

Hence  also  the  degrees  of  comparison  attach  to  ad- 
verbs as  well  as  to  adjectives.  Adverbs  modify  only 
verbs,  participles,  and  adjectives,  taking  the  latter 
term  in  its  true  functional  sense  of  words  used  to 


262  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  il      Gxpress  qualities  or  properties  of  objects,  the  objects 
-L-  '       themselves  beino;  understood :  for  substantives,  in  the 

§  93.  .    .  .  . 

Philology,  usual  empirical  sense  of  the  term,  are  certainly  modi- 
Parts  of  fied  by  adverbs,  as  '  some  gentlemen  mostly  barristers 
^^^^  '  crossed  the  Channel,'  where  it  is  clearly  not  the  verb 
which  is  modified  by  the  adverb.  The  words  '  mostly 
barristers'  are  functionally  an  adjective,  applying  to 
the  substantive  '  some  gentlemen.'  Adjectives  are  the 
modals  of  substantives,  adverbs  of  adjectives,  parti- 
ciples, and  verbs. 

16.  Relations  of  j^lace  and  time,  and  that  as  well 
in  subjective  as  in  objective  order,  give  rise  to  two 
classes  of  words  expressive  of  them,  prepositions  and 
conjunctions.  When  the  relation  is  one  of  equality, 
that  is,  when  both  the  members  are  treated  alike  and 
have  the  same  thing  affirmed  or  denied  of  them,  we 
have  the  simple  conjunctions,  and,  or,  neither — nor. 
'  John  and  James'  is  very  different  from  '  John  with 
James.'  But  when  one  member  of  the  relation  is 
named  first,  and  then  the  others  brought  into  con- 
nection with  it,  two  classes  of  words  arise  accordmg 
as  the  relation  is  statical  or  dynamical,  that  is,  be- 
tween things  treated  statically  or  as  nouns,  or  be- 
tween things  treated  dynamically  or  as  verbs.  In 
the  first  case  these  words  are  prepositions,  in  the  se- 
cond conjunctions.  '  Ora  pro  nobis;'  here  the  prayer 
is  treated  as  a  whole,  and  its  relation  to  its  object 
given  statically  by  the  preposition  pro.  '  Orandum 
est  ut  sit  mens  sana  f  here  the  dynamical  movement 
of  the  prayer  itself  is  given,  the  motive  animating 
the  prayer  expressed,  by  connecting  the  two  verbs 
by  the  conjunction  ut.  It  must  however  be  re- 
marked, that  the  names  of  the  parts  of  speech  are 
names   for  functions   of  words,    not   for   the  words 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


263 


§  93. 
Philology. 

Parts  of 
Speech. 


themselves;  and  that  consequently  the  same  word  pookh. 
may  be  employed  in  several  functions,  now  as  pre- 
position, now  as  conjunction.  For  instance,  'when' 
is  both  conjunction  and  relative  adverb  correspond- 
ing to  '  then ;'  its  relative  nature  enables  its  use  as 
a  conjunction;  see  par.  13,  where  the  movement  in- 
volved in  relatives  was  pointed  out.  So  also  'be- 
fore,' '  after,'  are  either  prepositions  or  conjunctions 
according  as  they  are  employed;  e.g.  'before  sunset,' 
'before  I  go  home.' 

17.  The  second  province  of  grammar  contains  the    inflection  and 
methods  in  which  the  classes  of  words,  distinguished 

in  the  first  province,  are  modified  and  connected  so 
as  to  express  trains  of  thought  and  feeling,  that  is, 
chiefly,  inflections  and  syntax.  Verbs,  for  instance, 
in  the  first  place  are  distinguished  into  kinds,  as 
neuter,  transitive,  frequentative,  inceptive,  having  ac- 
tive, passive,  middle  voices,  and  so  on.  Nouns  have 
certain  forms  to  express  diminution  and  augmenta- 
tion. The  rules  of  construction  of  sentences,  the 
concords  as  they  are  called,  belong  here,  together 
with  rules  for  government  of  cases,  that  is,  for  con- 
necting the  inflections  of  nouns  which  express  the 
diiferent  relations  of  their  objects  to  each  other. 

18.  As  nouns  are  either  inflected  or  modified  by 
prepositions  in  order  to  express  the  statical  relations  of 
their  objects,  so  verbs  have  tenses,  or  are  compounded 
with  auxiliaries,  in  order  to  express  the  dynamical 
relations  of  the  actions  named  by  them.  The  whole 
of  past,  present,  and  future,  time  is  thus  included  in 
grammatical  survey,  and  distinguished  into  epochs, 
applicable  to  all  events  of  whatever  variation  in  ac- 
tual length.  For  instance,  our  English  distinctions 
of  imperfect,  perfect,  and  pluperfect,  time  coordinate 


Syntax. 


264  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.  past  eveiits  in  a  series,  starting  from  the  present  mo- 
-—  '  ment ;  a  present  moment,  however,  which  is  entirely 
PhUoio'gy.  undetermined  as  to  its  length.  Thus  the  imperfect 
Inflection  and  '  lio  ran'  dcscribes  an  action  in  a  past  time,  merely 
past  because  distinguished  from  present;  it  is  a  past 
aorist.  The  perfect  'he  has  run'  is  more  definite, 
implying  a  connection  with  what  is  now  going  on. 
'  The  creation  of  the  earth  effected  a  considerable 
change  in  the  condition  of  the  universe'  is  one  thing ; 
'  the  creation  of  the  earth  has  effected  a  considerable 
change  in  the  condition  of  the  universe'  is  another ; 
the  latter  implies  that  this  change  is  still  existing; 
the  use  of  the  perfect  lights  up  the  picture  with 
a  present  interest,  and  this  present  moment  reaches 
back  to  the  definite  instant  in  which  the  creation  of 
the  earth  was  completed;  from  that  instant  to  the 
instant  of  speaking  becomes  one  vast  present  time. 
The  pluperfect  goes  farther  back  still,  that  is,  it  im- 
plies a  perfect  or  imperfect  between  it  and  the  pre- 
sent. 'He  had  written  a  book,' — you  immediately 
ask  When?  This  must  be  at  a  time  previous  to  an- 
other already  past  action. 

19.  The  principal  verb  in  the  sentence  gives  the 
time  to  which  all  the  other  times  are  referred ;  '  I  was 
unable  to  do  it  if  I  had  wished ;'  where  the  pluper- 
fect 'had  wished'  indicates  a  time  previous  to  the 
imperfect  'was,'  and  the  present  'to  do'  a  time  then 
present.  The  form  '  I  could  not  have  done  it  if  I 
had  wished'  must  mean  '  It  is  impossible  as  I  now 
know  (causa  cognoscendi)  that  I  should  have  done 
it  if  I  had  wished ;'  where  '  could'  is  a  conditional 
present,  the  same  as  '  can'  in  point  of  time,  but  indi- 
cating a  condition  on  which  it  depends.  Compare  'I 
cannot  if  I  wish'  with  '  I  could  not  if  I  wished;'  and 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  265 

'  I  can  if  I  wish'  with  '  I  could  if  I  wished ;'  where      book  ir. 

Cii  IV 

'  can'  and  '  cannot'  express  the  mere  facts  of  ability         —  ' 

§  93.         * 

and  inability,  '  could'  and  '  could  not'  the  dependence  Philology, 
of  these  facts  on  some  condition ;  the  time  in  both  inflection  and 
cases  being  the  same,  namely,  the  immediate  future 
counting  from  the  moment  of  speaking.  So  with 
the  future,  '  When  I  shall  have  travelled'  indicates 
the  close  of  a  period  which  is  itself  entirely  future ; 
and  this  double  future  becomes  a  proper  vehicle  for 
expressing  a  double  uncertainty, — '  Quis  tulerit  Grac- 
chos,  &c.?' 

20.  The  distinction  between  the  subjective  and 
objective  aspects  is  exj)ressed  in  inflection  and  syn- 
tax by  many  devices,  chiefly  by  the  distinction  of 
the  moods  in  verbs.  The  indicative  mood  expresses 
fact  undistinguished  from  opinion  or  feeling  about  it, 
without  distinguishing  the  two  aspects;  the  present 
and  preterite  of  the  indicative  mood  are  those  which 
alone  are  thus  entirely  undiscriminative  of  the  two 
aspects ;  the  future  tenses  of  the  indicative,  shall  or 
will,  and  shall  or  will  have,  already  admit  of  the  ex- 
pression of  different  degrees  of  uncertainty,  different 
modes  of  subjectivity ;  and  these  tenses  accordingly 
should  be  considered  as  forming  a  link  between  the 
indicative  and  conjunctive  moods,  while  all  the  re- 
maining purely  verbal  forms  would  conveniently  fall 
into  one  class,  as  branches  of  the  conjunctive  mood, 
or  the  mood  expressing  different  modes  of  subjec- 
tivity, or  ways  of  regarding  objects  as  distinguished 
from  the  objects  themselves,  or  in  their  purely  ob- 
jective aspect. 

21.  Pure  commands,  Xs/s  ro  'ip^(pi(T[jja,^  and  pure 
wishes,  [jbT]  yivoiTo^  should  then  be  classed  apart  as 
expressing  a  subjective  condition  of  mind  in  its  great- 


266 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Syntax. 


Book  II.      cst  possible  abstraction.     These  stand  at  tlie  opposite 
-^ '       end  of  the  scale,  as  it  were,  to  the  present  and  pre- 
PhQofJgy.     terite  indicative.     There  is  no  purely  objective  form 
infle^and   of  spccch,   as  there  is  nothing  purely  objective  in 
thought ;  the  most  purely  objective  form  of  speech 
is  that  which  draws  no  distinction  between  the  two 
aspects ;  a  pure  object  is  an  absolute,  its  existence  an 
illusion.     But  between  these  two  extremes,  between 
the  undiscriminative  indicative  and  the  pure  impera- 
tive and  pure  optative,  lie  the  different  degrees  and 
modes  of  discrimination,  belonging  to  the  future  in- 
dicative and  to  the  different  branches  of  the  conjunc- 
tive mood. 

11.  The  moment  we  leave  the  firm  ground  of  direct 
assertion  of  a  present  or  past  fact,  we  enter  upon  that 
of  uncertainty,  conjecture,  hope  and  fear.  The  con- 
ditions or  causes  of  a  future  fact  require  to  be  taken 
into  account  in  making  a  statement  concerning  it. 
Accordingly  we  find  in  some  languages,  for  instance 
in  our  own,  the  means  of  discriminating  conditions 
in  the  simplest  statement  in  future  time;  and  the 
means  impose  the  necessity  of  doing  so,  for  we  must 
use  either  '  shall'  or  '  will'  in  the  indicative  future, 
and  then  leave  it  to  the  context,  or  to  the  emphasis, 
to  take  back  the  distinction  if  we  do  not  wish  to  in- 
sist upon  it.  '  Will'  is  applicable  wherever  the  action 
is  to  be  represented  as  moving  from  the  thing  or 
person  himself  without  constraint,  '  shall'  when  it  is 
to  be  represented  as  the  result  of  some  condition  or 
powerful  motive,  and  hence  is  employed  to  indicate 
certainty  of  effect.  '  I  shall  rise  at  daybreak,'  that 
is,  I  know  I  shall,  or,  some  cause,  e.  g.  my  present 
resolution,  will  act  as^a  bond  uj)on  me;  but  'I  will 
rise  at  daybreak'  is  a  present  resolution  simply,  or, 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


267 


if  spoken  to  another  person,  a  promise.  '  Shall'  tie-  book  ii. 
scribes  the  action  ab  extra,  '  will'  ab  intra.  '  It  will  -1—  ' 
rain  tomorrow;'  'will'  because  the  weather  is  uncer-  PMioiogj'. 
tain  matter.  '  The  parcel  shall  go  off  tomorrow ;'  infle^  and 
'  shall'  because  its  going  may  be  certainly  provided  ^"^'^''" 
for.  Hence  the  future  with  shall  is  an  imperative, 
'  you  shall'  '  you  shall  not ;'  the  determining  condition 
lying  in  the  will  of  the  speaker.  An  equally  strong 
will  in  the  speaker  himself  is  expressed  by  will,  '  I 
will'  '  I  wo'nt.'  The  forms  '  I  shall'  '  I  sha'nt,'  spoken 
in  contradiction  to  commands  or  wishes,  imply  an 
unreasoning  determination  not  a  reasoning  choice, 
obstinacy  not  firmness.  It  is  in  cases  where  the  dis- 
tinct expression  of  volition  and  necessity  is  less  ob- 
vious that  the  confusion  in  the  use  of  '  shall'  and 
'  will'  is  most  frequent.  '  I  w^ill  thank  you  to  stand 
out  of  my  light'  is  not  correct,  unless  it  is  meant  as 
a  command;  if  it  is  meant  as  a  request,  it  ought  to 
run  '  I  should  thank  you ;'  for  then  the  thanks  are 
a  matter  of  course ;  while  '  I  will  thank  you'  implies 
'I  mean  to  have  to  thank  you,'  that  is,  'you  shall.' 
The  same  holds  good  in  the  third  person;  'he  will 
thank  you  to  stand  out  of  his  light'  is  a  command 
in  shape  of  a  message;  but  a  request  'he  would  thank 
you'  is  correct.  Why  'would'  in  the  third  person, 
'should'  in  the  first?  Because  in  speaking  of  an- 
other you  speak  of  him  as  acting  spontaneously,  in 
speaking  of  yourself  you  speak  with  certainty.  So 
also  we  say  '  I  shall  die,'  but  '  you  and  he  Avill  die,' 
in  a  matter  where  the  certainty  is  equally  great,  in 
order  to  soften  the  expression.  '  Shall'  and  '  should,' 
implying  certainty  arising  from  constraint,  are  always 
avoided  in  speaking  of  others,  unless  this  certainty 
is  the  thing  intended  to  be  expressed.     '  One  would 


268 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 
Ch.  IV. 

g93. 
I'hilology. 


hope  so,'  '  one  would  think  so,'  '  as  Aristarchus  would 
say;'  but  '1  should'  in  all  these  cases  is  correct;  'I 
would  hope  so'  means  '  I  should  like  to  hope  so,'  that 
Inflection  and    [q   I  would  if  I  could,  if  cxtemal  conditions  allowed 

Syntax.  ' 

me ;  but  '  I  should  hope  so'  means  I  should  hope  so 
on  some  grounds  if  there  were  not  counter  reasons ; 
where  the  distinction  is  between  two  classes  of  ex- 
ternal conditions,  not  between  external  and  internal. 
23.  But  the  most  important  of  all  the  methods 
of  distinguishing  the  subjective  from  the  objective 
aspect  is  the  use  of  different  branches  or  tenses  of 
the  conjunctive  mood.  The  moment  we  leave  the 
ground  of  direct  assertion,  in  which  the  two  aspects 
are  undistinguished,  we  find  two  directions  open,— 
the  expression  of  a  fact  as  uncertain,  either  in  itself 
or  as  dependent  upon  another  fact,  and  the  expression 
of  a  feeling  or  an  opinion.  Both  are  fundamentally 
the  same,  and  both  are  accordingly  effected  by  the 
same  means,  the  use  of  forms  of  the  verb  which  may 
best  be  classed  together  as  branches  of  the  conjunc- 
tive mood.  When  motives  are  assigned  as  final 
causes;  when  reasons  are  given  for  an  opinion;  when 
details  are  indicated  as  uncertain,  the  general  tend- 
ency or  result  only  being  expressed,  e.  g.  '  sunt  qui 
dicant;'  when  probabilities  are  stated  as  such;  when 
the  opinions  or  sayings  of  others  are  reported ;  and 
doubtless  in  many  other  cases  which  might  be  men- 
tioned; these  characters  are  given  to  the  statement 
by  means  of  the  conjunctive  mood.  The  general 
principle  is,  that  an  impression  on  the  mind  is  to 
be  expressed  as  distinguished  from  the  impression 
which  either  might  have  been  produced  on  others, 
or  would  have  been  produced  if  the  truth  had  been 
known. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


260 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 


§93. 
Philolo^rv. 


24.  Other  means  are  at  the  disposal  of  language 
for  contributing  to  the  same  effect,  for  instance,  the 
distinction  of  the  two  kinds  of  negatives  in  Greek, 
ov  and  ^^,  and  their  derivatives.  Participles,  when  inflection  and 
placed  in  prominent  positions,  usually  have  a  mean- 
ing either  explanatory  of  what  has  gone  before,  or 
limiting  it  to  an  hypothetical  case;   whence  comes 

the  well-known  rule  of  translating,  to  amplify  the 
Greek  and  Latin  participles,  by  an  '  if'  '  though'  '  at 
least'  and  so  on. 

25.  The   expression   of  the   distinction  between 
causa   coOTioscendi  and  causa  existendi  is  to  some 

o 

extent  provided  for  by  the  means  already  described, 
but  yet  it  would  be  well  if  some  more  readily  ap- 
plicable sign  could  l)e  brought  into  current  use,  like 
shall  and  will  for  instance,  so  as  to  make  speakers 
attentive  to  which  of  the  two  they  mean,  and  to 
supply  hearers  with  a  means  of  detecting  the  con- 
fusion at  once  where  it  exists.  As  it  is,  the  words 
Why  and  Because  cover  both  meanings  alike.  So 
also  there  is  no  reason  why  first  and  second  inten- 
tions should  not  be  distinguished  by  appropriated 
forms  of  speech ;  but  the  evil  of  confusing  them  has 
not  yet  made  itself  sufficiently  felt.  General  terms 
contain  another  source  of  ambiguity  which  there  are 
no  ready  means  at  present  of  clearing  up.  '  Humanity' 
for  instance  means  either  '  all  men'  or  '  all  men  so  far 
only  as  they  are  distinctively  men;'  it  means  either 
the  empirical  whole  or  the  logical  concept  of  man- 
kind. To  point  out  these  distinctions  in  conversation 
involves,  in  the  present  state  of  language,  immense 
circumlocution,  not  from  the  difficulty  or  abstrusc- 
ness  of  the  notions,  but  from  the  want  of  a  distinct 
notation  of  them  by  language.      Yet  they  are  not 


270 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


bookii.  distinctions  which  belong  to  a  special  subject,  like 
mathematical  or  chemical  distinctions,  for  instance, 
but  are  involved  in  all  matters  of  common  discussion. 


§93. 
Philologj' 


Inflection  and    "VVe  are  able  to  indicate  by  slight  chans^es  in  form, 

Syntax.  _  ./  &  O  ^  ' 

or  at  least  in  tone,  whether  we  are  reporting  the 
opinions  of  others ;  we  have  invented  inceptive  and 
frequentative  verbs,  diminutive  and  augmentative 
nouns ;  why  should  we  not  invent  similar  forms  to  dis- 
tinguish logical  from  empirical  objects,  reasons  from 
causes,  things  as  they  are  to  us  from  things  charac- 
terised by  their  relations  to  other  things? 
style.  16.  The  third  province  of  grammar,  indicated  in 

par.  4,  contains  whatever  may  fall  under  the  term 
Style,  the  more  transient  modifications  of  speech 
by  trains  of  consciousness,  the  more  flexible  details 
within  the  li^jTiits  of  the  general  rules  of  inflection  and 
syntax.  There  is  a  style  Avhich  is  peculiar  to  each 
language,  depending  partly  on  its  inflectional  and 
,.  syntactical  structure,  partly  on  the  genius  of  the 
people  working  onwards  upon  that  basis;  and  it  is 
Avithin  this  general  style,  or  genius,  of  a  language 
that  the  style  of  particular  writers  moves  and  de- 
velops itself.  Some  languages  arrange  their  sent- 
ences in  what  may  be  called  an  accumulative  way, 
the  main  clause  first,  the  subordinate  clauses  after- 
wards, branching  out  from  the  main  stem  and  from 
its  larofer  bousfhs :  others  have  a  constructive  or  ana- 
lytic  style,  in  which  the  main  verb  comes  last,  and 
not  till  reading  to  the  end  of  the  period  is  light 
thrown  back  upon  the  meaning  of  the  whole.  Ger- 
man is  an  instance  ;  a  German  period  is  like  a  Hegel's 
Logic  on  a  small  scale,  as  it  were  a  box  containing 
smaller  boxes  within  it,  and  these  again  the  same; 
so  that  the  whole  is  not  only  organic,  but  the  com- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  271 

prehension  of  the  whole  is  prior  to  the  comprehension      book  ii. 
of  the  parts.  -^  ' 

•  1  .  §  93 

27.  Some  Languages  again  lend  themselves  with      phUoio'gj-. 
greater  readiness  than  others  to  a  varied  and  perspi-        st^. 
cuous  style,  a  rapid  flow  of  minute  distinctions  with- 
out circumlocution  or  repetition.     For  instance,  the 
French  particle  of  comparison  '  que,'  equally  applic- 
able to  express  'as  much  as'  and  'more  or  less  than,' 

gives  French  a  great  advantage  over  English  in  point 
of  style,  as  in  a  sentence  which  I  take  from  De  Toc- 
queville,  "avaient  toujours  ete  aussi,  et  je  pourrais 
presque  dire,  plus  inconnues  qu'elles  pouvaient  I'etre." 

28.  Some  languages  again  have  made  more  ap- 
proach than  others  to  the  distinction  of  concepts  from 
percepts,  mentioned  in  par.  25 ;  and  have  on  this  ac- 
count a  great  clearness  and  precision  of  style.  Latin 
for  instance  can  and  often  does  use  its  neuter  plural 
adjectives  as  concepts.  Bona,  magna,  divina,  mean 
things  so  far  forth  as  they  are  good,  great,  divine. 
French  in  the  same  way  has  the  use  of  the  article, 
le  vrai,  le  beau,  le  bien.  Opposed  to  this  feature  of 
style  is  the  analytical  distinction  of  abstract  qualities 
from  the  concrete  objects  to  which  they  belong.  In 
Greek  abstract  nouns  we  always  think  of  this  abstract 
quality,  m  Latin  abstract  nouns  always  of  the  con- 
crete phenomena  in  which  it  is  exhibited ;  (piKicc  from 
<ptXoc  is  the  feeling  of  friendship,  amicitia  from  amicus 
is  the  state  of  being  friends.  The  turn  of  mind  which 
analyses  percepts  produces  a  different  style  from  that 
which  holds  fast  concepts ;  language  of  the  first  kind 
keeps  us  steadily  in  face  of  the  facts,  language  of  the 
second  kind  substitutes  for  them  our  already  current 
generalities.  It  makes  us  think  we  know  the  sub- 
ject, whether  we  really  know  it  or  not. 


272  LOGIC  OP  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.  2Q.  The  stvle  ofwriters  in  alano;uao:e  must  move 

Ch.  IV.  .     .  ...  o      & 

-^—  '       within  the  limits  imposed  by  the  general  style  of  the 

Phiioio'gj'.  language  itself.  For  instance,  Mr.  Browning's  style, 
Style.  in  poetry,  is  a  constant  wrestling  with  the  difficulties 
which  the  English  language  offers  to  the  combination 
of  brevity  and  rapidity  with  clearness  and  fulness  of 
thought;  elliptically  suppressing  relatives,  articles, 
prepositions,  auxiliary  verbs,  and  '  to'  in  infinitives ; 
and  thus  continually  having  to  trust  to  the  context 
to  show  whether  a  word  is  a  verb,  noun,  or  participle, 
which  without  the  usual  complement  of  particles  is 
especially  difficult  in  a  language  so  little  inflected 
as  the  Eno;lish,  and  where  the  same  word  is  so  fre- 
quently  both  noun  and  verb.  This  dependence  of 
the  syntactical  construction  upon  the  context,  toge- 
ther with  the  constant  use  of  the  figure  known  as 
'TT^og  70  GTiiiiotivoiMvov^  that  is,  the  referring  to  a  mean- 
ing which  is  involved,  but  not  expressly  stated,  in 
what  has  gone  before,  compels  the  reader  to  be  con- 
stantly interj)reting  the  parts  by  the  whole  instead 
of  the  whole  by  the  parts,  and  constitutes,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  at  once  the  peculiar  difficulty  and  the  peculiar 
beauty  of  Mr.  Browning's  style. 

30.  There  are  two  ways  of  interpreting  the  mean- 
ing of  sentences,  either  by  their  purely  syntactical 
and  inflectional  structure,  or  by  the  context,  as  it  is 
called,  which  determines  what  syntactical  structure 
is  intended,  when  this  would  otherwise  be  doubtful. 
Spoken  language  has  this  immense  advantage  over 
written,  that  it  can  call  emphasis  into  play  to  ex- 
plain its  meaning.  It  is  the  art  of  Avriting  so  to 
arrange  the  clauses  and  words  of  sentences  as  to 
show  where  the  emphasis  would  be  laid  in  speaking 
them.     All  sentences  lay  down  one  image  or  notion 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  273 

at  the  beginning,  and  proceed  to  superinduce  another      book  ii. 

-, .  ,1        .       .  ,  Ch.  IV. 

upon  it,  or  to  modiiy  it  m  some  way  or  other ;  ^ — 
the  terminus  a  quo  is  properly  called  the  subject,  PMioiogy. 
the  terminus  ad  quem  the  predicate,  of  the  sentence.  style. 
The  Greek  language  had  the  power  of  indicating 
the  subject  by  the  addition  of  the  definite  article. 
The  English  has  to  trust  to  position  or  to  emphasis, 
by  which  it  indicates  not  the  subject  but  the  predi- 
cate of  the  sentence,  the  new  thing  intended  to  be 
said;  as  was  pointed  out  by  Abp.  Whately  in  his 
Logic.  'Prayer  wins  heaven,^  that  is,  it  is  heaven 
that  is  won  by  prayer;  ''Prayer  wins  heaven,'  that 
is,  it  is  prayer  by  which  heaven  is  won ;  '  Prayer  wins 
heaven,'  that  is,  it  is  a  conquest  that  prayer  effects. 
Some  writers  use  stops  to  indicate  pauses  in  the  pro- 
nunciation, and  thus  insert  them  often  without  any 
regard  to  syntax ;  for  instance,  a  comma  between 
nominative  and  verb.  The  proper  use  of  stops  is  to 
distinguish  the  logical  or  syntactical  clauses  of  a  sent- 
ence, or  the  several  members  of  an  enumeration ;  for, 
since  they  must  be  used  for  purposes  of  this  kind, 
it  is  confusino:  to  use  them  also  to  indicate  mere 
pauses  of  the  voice. 

31.  It  is  to  this  third  province  of  grammar  that  the 
distinction  between  verse  and  prose  belongs.  When 
mere  differences  of  accent,  emphasis,  and  quantity, 
with  their  derivatives,  metre,  rh3^thin,  cadence,  rhyme, 
and  alliteration,  are  employed  to  express  feeling,  or 
to  impress  different  degrees  of  importance  in  what  is 
said  upon  the  hearer,  there  arises  a  certain  style  in 
the  language  so  modulated,  distinct  from  mere  prose 
or  speech  of  common  life  as  being  more  adapted  to 
solemn  occasions,  by  the  expression  of  emotion  along 
with  thought.     The  first  literature  would  probably 

VOL.  IT.  T 


274 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§93. 
Philologj\ 

Style. 


§04. 

Political 

Economy. 


be  metrical ;  in  later  times  only  would  a  literary  or 
cultured  prose  be  produced,  a  style,  however,  which 
would  be  no  less  susceptible  of  harmony  and  elegance 
than  the  more  regularly  modulated  metrical  style. 
The  beauty  of  style  in  prose  depends,  first,  upon  its 
having  a  logically  symmetrical  structure  of  thought 
to  express,  and  secondly,  upon  its  expressing  this 
structure  with  precision  and  perspicuity.  No  style 
can  be  good  in  point  of  form  which  is  not  supported 
by  a  full  command  of  the  syntactical  contrivances  of 
the  language,  and  none  in  point  of  matter  which  does 
not  rest  on  a  similar  command  of  its  vocabulary.  The 
matter  of  style  is  the  thought  or  meaning  to  be  ex- 
pressed, the  form  is  the  language  expressing  it ;  and 
this  language  again  may  be  distinguished  into  the 
same  two  branches,  which  are  its  matter  and  its  form, 
namely,  the  vocabulary  and  the  syntax  employed  in 
its  composition.  Xo  language  without  style ;  and, 
since  language  is,  potentially  at  least,  coextensive 
with  consciousness  itself,  we  may  see  in  this  the 
justification  of  the  well-known  aphorism  '  The  style 
indicates  the  man.' 

§  94.  I.  Another  science  is  that  of  Political  Eco- 
nomy, which  has  taken  its  place  among  acknowledged 
sciences  more  decisively  than  perhaps  any  other 
branch  of  practical  science.  See  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  Sys- 
tem of  Logic,  Book  vi.  Chap.  ix.  §  3.  I  shall  make 
no  apology  for  treating  this  subject,  in  this  and  the 
two  following  §§,  at  greater  length  than  might  per- 
haps seem  at  first  sight  appropriate  to  a  general  en- 
quiry into  the  theory  of  practice.  The  reasons  which 
weigh  with  me  for  doing  so  are  of  two  kinds ;  first, 
in  order  to  show  the  connection  between  this,  the  most 
completely  constituted,   branch  of  practical  science 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  275 

and  the  general  body  of  the  practical  sciences,  to  in-      book  ii. 
corporate  it  as  a  stone  already  hewn  and  carved  into         -^  " 
the  entire  building,  which  can   only  be  done  satis-       Political 
factorily  by  showing  at  some  length  its  community 
of  distinctions,  principles,  and  method,  with  theirs  ; 
and  secondly,  in  order  to  derive  for  the  distinctions, 
principles,  and  method  themselves,  a  new  justifica- 
tion, by  exhibiting  their  applicability  to  this  science.   I 
do  not  profess  to  be  a  discoverer  in  political  economy, 
but  merely  attempt  to  arrange  truths  which  I  con- 
sider already  established  in  such  an  order,  and  to 
organise  them  in  such  an  interdependence,  as  to  ex- 
hibit the  connection  of  this  science  with  the  rest,  and 
the  value  of  the  principles  and  distinctions  common 
to  all,  in  a  true  light. 

2.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that,  in  whatever 
way  political  economy  may  be  conceived,  it  is  sub- 
ordinate to  the  general  sciences  or  arts  of  ethic  and 
politic ;  that  its  results  are  not  alone  decisive  of  the 
merits  of  political,  still  less  of  moral,  action  ;  that 
when  it  has  discovered  how  wealth  is  acquired,  how 
most  abundantly  acquired,  and  how  it  tends  to  be 
distributed  in  consequence  of  the  process  of  its  pro- 
duction, the  further  questions,  as  to  how  far  it  is 
right  or  prudent  to  follow  these  methods  strictl}^, 
how  far  to  modify  them  for  the  sake  of  other  advant- 
ages, are  questions  which  fall  under  a  larger  and 
more  general  science.  It  is  then  within  these  limits 
that  the  organisation  of  the  art  and  science  of  poli- 
tical economy  is  to  be  considered. 

3.  The  art  and  the  science  of  political  economy 
are  properly  defined  by  the  action  which  is  their 
object-matter,  namely,  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  or 
of  commodities  having  exchange  value.     Sometimes 


276  LOGIC  or  the  peactical  sciences. 

Book  II.      it  is  defined  as  the  science  "  which  treats  of  the  Laws 

Ch.  IV.  ^  r\  • 

—         which  govern  the  relations  of  Exchangeable  Quanti- 
Poiiticai      ties,"  Mr.  Macleod's  Theory  and  Practice  of  Bankino^, 

Economy.  '    .  -^    .  .       ,  °' 

Yol.  i.  Introduction,  2nd  edit.  This  is  good  so  far 
as  the  science  or  logic  of  political  economy  is  con- 
cerned ;  but  it  leaves  out  of  consideration  that  poli- 
tical economy  is  a  practical  science,  and  includes  an 
art  as  well  as  a  science  ;  in  which  view  its  object- 
matter  must  be  defined  by  some  action,  as  well  as 
by  the  objects,  and  their  laws,  with  which  that  action 
is  concerned. 

4.  Others  would  define  poUtical  economy  by  its 
supposed  single  motive,  the  desire  of  acquisition.  The 
desire  of  acquiring  wealth,  it  is  said,  is  not  indeed 
the  only  motive  actuating  men  in  their  dealings  with 
it,  but  it  is  the  predominant  motive  ;  it  may  be  iso- 
lated and  its  results  studied,  as  if  it  were  the  only 
motive,  on  condition  of  taking  into  account  at  last 
the  concurrent  motives  by  which  it  is  modified ;  espe- 
cially since,  in  the  most  important  classes  of  dealings, 
those  of  industry  and  commerce  as  a  business,  it  is 
this  motive  which  acts  almost  alone,  at  least  with 
only  its  inseparable  antagonists,  love  of  ease  and  en- 
joyment of  wealth  already  acquu'ed.  According  to 
this  definition,  political  economy  would  contain  two 
branches ;  one  in  which  it  would  be  an  abstract  science, 
examining  the  action  and  results  of  a  single  motive, 
artificially  isolated  for  the  purposes  of  enquiry,  the 
other  in  which  this  action  and  these  results  are  com- 
bined with  those  resultino;  from  the  action  of  other 
motives,  which  vary  according  to  the  circumstances 
of  each  nation,  each  class  of  possessors,  and  each  in- 
dividual. Such  is  apparently  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  concep- 
tion of  the  science. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  277 

5.   This  mode  of  organising  the  study  of  political       r""'\v" 
economy  is  radically  different  from  mine,  and  in  my         — 
opinion  unsound.     The  supposed  isolation  of  the  mo-       Political 

.  ....  .  Economy. 

tive  of  acquisition  is  a  chimera.  We  have  no  test 
or  measure  of  its  strength  but  in  composition  with 
other  motives.  It  has  always  at  the  least  two  inse- 
parable antagonists,  the  motive  of  taking  one's  ease, 
and  the  motive  of  enjoying  unproductively  wealth 
already  acquired.  In  every  case,  and  in  every  in- 
dividual, these  two  motives  in  composition  with  it 
help  to  determine  its  strength ;  and  this  strength  is 
different  in  every  individual  and  in  every  case.  We 
must  therefore  begin  by  assuming  a  certain  normal 
degree  of  strength  in  the  motive  of  acquisition  so 
modified  and  determined,  before  proceeding  to  ex- 
amine its  action.  But  how  ascertain  this  normal 
degree  of  strength?  How  calculate  its  strength  in 
one  individual  compared  to  its  strength  in  another? 
The  answer,  I  suppose,  must  be.  By  the  quantities 
of  wealth  which  we  see  individuals  acquiring.  But 
these  quantities  depend,  undoubtedly,  upon  many 
other  circumstances  as  well  as  the  strength  of  their 
desire  of  acquisition,  such  as  natural  powers,  phy- 
sical and  intellectual,  natural  products  or  facilities 
offered  by  countries  where  the  men  live,  mines,  tim- 
ber, harbours,  and  so  on.  If  we  put  these  aside, 
under  the  phrase  caiteris  paribus,  and  suppose  men 
to  be  set  on  acquiring  wealth  under  equal  conditions 
but  with  different  degrees  of  energy,  depending  on 
different  strengths  in  the  common  motive,  we  must 
still  examine  first  the  concrete  cases  of  acquisition 
in  which  this  motive  appears  to  be  the  predominant 
one,  that  is,  the  operations  of  industry  and  com- 
merce.    In  other  words,  we  must  begin  our  enquiry 


278  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  XL  with  isolating,  not  a  motive,  but  a  class  of  concrete 
—  '  operations,  as  the  immediate  object  of  enquiry.  Ab- 
Poiiticai  stracting  then,  first,  from  natural  powers  in  the  men 
conomy.  ^^^  facilities  offered  by  circumstances,  and  secondly 
from  concurrent  motives  of  action,  we  may  arrive  at 
some  estimate  of  the  normal  strength,  and  its  various 
different  degrees  in  different  men,  of  the  remaining 
motive  of  acquisition.  But  it  is  evident  that  this 
motive  is  a  residuum,  not  a  known  force  with  which 
we  begin  the  enquiry,  or  which  can  be  laid  at  the 
basis  of  a  deduction.  It  is  known  only  by  means 
of  a  previous  knowledge  of  other  circumstances,  and 
other  motives  depending  on  them.  It  is  clear  there- 
fore, that,  although  we  may  characterise  the  enquiry 
into  the  express  operations  of  trade  and  industry  as 
an  enquiry  into  the  action  of  the  abstract  motive  of 
acquisition,  the  enquiry  itself,  or  as  I  should  express 
it  the  object-matter  of  the  enquiry  in  its  first  inten- 
tion, consists  in  examining  the  phenomena  of  this 
class  of  operations,  without  any  especial  use  being 
made  of  the  motive  of  acquisition.  The  strength  of 
this  motive  is  x^  an  unknown  quantity,  which  does 
not  ascertain  but  is  ascertained  by  the  analysis  of 
the  operations  in  question.  To  lay  this  motive  at 
the  basis  of  the  abstract  branch  of  political  economy 
is  a  fiction,  an  instance  of  mistaking  the  character, 
or  second  intention,  of  a  thing  for  the  analysis  or 
nature  of  the  thing  itself. 

6.  I  return,  then,  to  my  original  definition  of  the 
science  by  the  acquisition  of  commodities  having  ex- 
change value.  This  definition  gives  the  limits  and 
the  characteristics  of  the  whole.  Two  things  are  in- 
volved in  the  term  'having  exchange  value;'  first, 
the  commodities  in  question  are  material  as  distin- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  279 

guished  from  spiritual,  because  they  must  be  capable  Huok  ii. 
of  beino;  sundered  from  other  commodities  in  order  — " 
to  be  separately  valued,  and  of  being  passed  from  Political 
one  person  to  another  in  order  to  be  exchanged.  I  '"^""'"J- 
do  not  mean  that  they  must  be  corporeal,  that  is, 
visible  and  tangible,  but  that  they  must  be  capable 
of  a  distinct  and  separate  existence ;  the  act  of  teach- 
ing, for  instance,  is  a  commodity  having  exchange 
value,  the  act  of  teaching  one  person  a  science  and 
abstaining  from  teaching  it  to  any  one  else  is  another, 
which  would  probably  have  a  higher  value ;  but  the 
knowledge  which  enables  a  man  to  do  the  act  of 
teaching  is  a  spiritual  commodity  which  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  man  nor  valued  in  exchange.  So 
again  a  character  for  honesty  is  non-valuable  and 
non-exchangeable  ;  but  the  acts  which  a  man  may 
covenant  to  do,  as  to  enter  into  another's  service, 
have  an  exchange  value  all  the  higher  in  consecjuence. 
It  is  like  the  fertility  of  a  field,  the  right  of  using 
which  is  the  more  valuable  in  consequence  of  this  in- 
separable cjuality.  In  short,  all  exchange  value  is 
founded  on  some  value-in-use ;  but  all  value-in-use, 
by  itself,  is  excluded  from  the  consideration  of  poli- 
tical econom}^  The  second  consequence  from  the 
definition  '  having  exchange  value'  is,  that  the  only 
actions  in  pursuit  of  wealth  immediately  and  exclu- 
sively belonging  to  political  economy  are  dealings 
between  men.  The  best  way  of  ploughing,  of  crop- 
ping, of  shearing,  the  best  kind  of  machinery,  of 
material  for  manufacture,  the  best  climate,  the  best 
soil  for  particular  crops,  the  best  iron,  timber,  and 
so  on,  in  short  everything  that  relates  to  the  deal- 
ings of  man  with  nature  alone,  may  serve  as  the 
foundation  or  subsidiary  knowledge  to  political  eco- 


280 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


bookil  nomy,  but  is  excluded  from  the  science  itself;  for 

—  instance,  the  law  that  the  increase  of  product  from 

§94.  '  .  .  T 

Political  land  tends,  beyond  a  certain  point,  to  decrease  m 


Economy. 


amount  with  additional  labour  and  capital  bestowed 
(Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.  Book  i. 
Ch.  xii.  §  2)  is  not  strictly  within  but  subsidiary  to 
the  doctrines  of  political  economy.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  the  doctrine,  or  fact,  that  all  capital,  all 
means  of  further  production,  consist  in  saving,  or  are 
the  result  of  self-denial  in  abstaining  from  consump- 
tion; a  doctrine  which  is  true  whether  the  capital 
saved  is  intended  for  exchange,  as  in  making  ad- 
vances to  labourers,  or  solely  for  employment  by  a 
solitary  hunter  or  trapper.  These  are  cases  of  know- 
ledge to  be  elsewhere  acquired,  being  extraneous  to 
political  economy  just  in  the  same  way  as  the  know- 
ledo'e  of  the  laws  of  the  land  or  countries  traded 
with  is ;  as  for  instance,  the  law  of  debtor  and  credi- 
tor, or  the  course  of  history  which  has  determined 
the  existence  of  a  landlord  class  in  England. 

7.  If  then,  instead  of  defining  political  economy 
by  the  supposed  isolated  motive  of  the  actions  which 
are  its  object-matter,  we  define  it  by  those  actions 
themselves,  that  is,  by  the  act  of  acquisition,  instead 
of  by  the  desire  or  motive  of  acquisition,  everything 
becomes  clear,  logical,  and  homogeneous.  The  action 
of  acquisition  may  have  many  motives,  all  of  which 
are  included  in  the  scope  of  the  science,  along  with 
the  action'- which  they  prompt  and  guide,  but  only 
so  far  as  they  prompt  or  guide  it.  The  act  of  ac- 
quisition limits  the  motives  ;  the  things  acquired, 
commodities  having  exchange  value,  limit  the  act  of 
acquisition;  and  these  commodities,  acts,  and  mo- 
tives, are  together  the  object-matter  of  the  science. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  281 

These  motives,  and  the  reasoninor  about  them  and       book  ii. 

'  .         .  *-*  Ch.  IV. 

about  the  means   of  satisfyins;  them,   the  balancino;         — 
and  decidino-  between  them  when  they  conflict,  these       Political 

1  .  1  •    1      •        1  Economy. 

constitute  the  voluntary  action  which  is  the  material 
or  object-matter  both  of  the  science  and  of  the  art  of 
political  economy;  the  laws,  principles,  and  govern- 
ing; distinctions,  in  these  actions  and  reasonino;s  are 
its  logic,  theoretical  branch,  or  science ;  and  the  prac- 
tical rules  which  may  be  deduced  for  guiding  con- 
duct towards  the  attainment  of  any  desired  end,  that 
is,  the  acquisition  of  the  most  desired  commodities, 
constitute  its  art.  The  acc|uisition  of  the  greatest 
possible  quantity  of  exchangeable  commodities  is  not 
the  purpose  or  reXog  of  the  art  of  political  economy, 
but  the  accjuisition  of  such  commodities  and  in  such 
quantities  as  we  may  most  desire  to  have.  What 
and  how  much  we  may  most  desire  to  have  is  to  be 
decided  extraneously,  and  falls  under  the  scope  of 
politic  and  ethic,  not  of  political  economy.  Were  it 
contrariwise,  political  economy  would  not  be  sub- 
ordinate but  superior  to  those  larger  arts,  which  is 
admitted  on  all  hands  not  to  be  the  case;  while  if 
the  aim  of  political  economy  were  to  acquire  the 
greatest  possible  amount  of  wealth,  as  in  its  abstract 
branch  it  would  be  if  the  science  were  defined  by  the 
motive  of  acquisition,  it  would  be  independent  of 
ethic  and  politic,  so  far  as  that  abstract  branch  of  it 
was  concerned,  and  the  logical  coherence  of  the  three 
sciences  would  be  so  far  disturbed. 

8.  Motives  in  political  economy  hold  precisely  the 
same  position  as  the  difterent  kinds  of  value-in- use. 
They  are  in  fact  the  subjective  aspect  of  value-in-use. 
Whatever  has  value-in-use,  utility,  or  pleasure,  sup- 
plies a  motive  for  its  being  acquired ;  the  perception 


282  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      of  a  value-iii-use  is  the  motive  for  acquiring  the  thing 
—— '       perceived  to  have  that  vakie.     When  it  is  said  that 

Political      the  motive  of  acquisition,  apart  from  other  motives, 
conomj.      ^^  ^^^  motive  proper  to  poHtical  economy,  the  only 
motive  of  which  it  takes  cognisance,  it  is  meant  or 
ought  to  be  meant,  that  all  or  any  motives  leading 
to  acquisition  are  its  motives.     The  confusion  of  this 
with  the  wish  to  acquire  by  itself,  the  wish  to  have 
a  thing  because  having  it  is  the  means  to  enjoy  it, 
is  a  confusion  of  the  effect  with  the  cause ;  m  other 
words,   it   is  to  confuse    the    action  resulting   from 
motives  with  those  motives  themselves,  treating  them 
as  a  sinirle  motive  because  the  act  is  sino;le  in  which 
they  result.     It  is  true  that  the  wish  to  acquire  may 
become  a  special  motive  by  itself,  as  it  was  shown 
by  Tucker  that  the  desire  to  possess  coin  is  a  result 
of  translation,   from  association  Avith  the  pleasures 
which  the  possession  of  coin  procures.     But  in  this 
sense  the  desire  of  acquisition  is  one  motive  among 
many,  leading  as  others  do  to  the  action  of  acquisi- 
tion, but  very  insignificant  compared  to  the  rest ;  the 
action  of  acquisition  gratifies  this  wish  as  it  does  all 
others ;  and  it  is  not  in  this  secondary  character,  as 
gratifying  a  desire  of  acquisition,  that  the  action  of 
acquisition  enters  into  political  economy,  but  in  its 
character  of  an  action  gratifying  all  wishes  indiffer- 
ently.    Acquisition  is  the  single  channel  into  which 
all  motives  are  gathered  up,  and  through  which  they 
operate,  as  it  is  the  single  means  by  which  all  plea- 
sures, all  enjoyments  of  values-in-use,  so  far  as  de- 
pendent on  wealth,  are  procured. 

9.  But  what  is  the  connection  between  the  art 
and  the  science  of  political  economy,  and  whereby  is 
it  sustained?     The  art  consists  in  making  desirable 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  283 

exchanges ;   and  the  immediate  knowledge  requisite      book  n. 
for  this  is  the  knowledge  of  the  values,  or  prices  if       ^— ' 
estimated  in  money,   of  different   commodities   and      Political 
services;   of  their  probable  fluctuations  in  the  near 
future ;  and,  as  the  key  to  this,  of  the  causes  which 
specifically  operate  in  raising  or  lowering  the  prices 
of  different  articles.     To  possess  the  art  thoroughly 
and  in  its  full  extent  it  w^ould  therefore  seem  requi- 
site to  possess  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  prices, 
as  well  as  of  their  actual  state,   and  current  trans- 
actions in  the  business  world.     But  this  would  be 
impossible  without  a  knowledge    of  the   history  of 
prices,  of  their  changes  in  the  past  as  well  as  in  the 
present,  and  also,  it  must  be  added,  of  other  modes 
of  human  action,  with  the  comparative  strength  of 
the  motives  on  which  they  are  founded,  which  come 
into  collision  or  combination  with  the  actions  of  ac- 
quisition and  exchange,  and  modify  their  results.    To 
trace  the  laws  which  govern  this  complex  action  of 
society,  in  their  effects  upon  that  part  of  it  which 
consists  in  acquisition  and  exchange  of  values,  is  a 
part  of  the  science  which  may  be  called  its  dynamical 
branch ;  and  the  logic  both  of  the  statical  and  dyna- 
mical branches  would  have  to  be  laid  down,  before 
the  science  of  political  economy  could  be  considered 
to  be  complete.     It  is  however  only  the  logic  of  the 
statical  part  of  the  whole  subject  that  can  be  sketched 
here.     The  dynamical  branch  with  its  logic  contains 
the  principles  upon  which  the  practice  or  Art  of  poli- 
tical economy  immediately  depends  ;   an   art  which, 
as  distinguished  from  the  science,  it  would  perhaps 
be  well  to  name  Economical  Policy.     Political  eco- 
nomy would  then  be  reserved  as  the  name  of  the 
whole  subject  considered  as  a  science,  having  its  pure 


284  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      logic  as  the  statical,  its  applied  logic  as  the  dynami- 

- —         cal,  portion  of  it ;   and  economical  policy  the  name 

Political      of  the  whole  subiect  considered  as  an  art,  or  practice 

Economy.  ''  •  t         i       /> 

flowing,  mediately  from  the  pure,  immediately  from 
the  applied  logic,  that  is,  from  the  principles  of  the 
dynamical  branch.  The  connection  between  the  sta- 
tical and  dynamical  branches  will  be  again  touched 
on  before  c^uitting  the  subject.     (§  95,  96.) 

10.  The  laws  of  values  or  prices,  then,  upon  which 
their  phenomena  depend,  are  that  part  of  the  art 
which  connects  it  with  the  science.    This  is  the  ground 
common  to  them  both  ;  but  the  statical  part  of  the 
logic  contains  only  the  most  general  laws,  the  most 
g-eneral  org-anic  distinctions,  which   serve  to  distin- 
guish  and  connect  the  different  classes  of  exchanges, 
and  to  trace  the  different  elements  which  compose 
the  value  of  the  commodities  exchanged.     This  sta- 
tical part  is  entirely  analytical ;   and  it  is  from  its 
application  to   the    facts    and   history  of  prices,   in 
connection  with  general  history  and  other  modes  of 
human  action,  that  the  general  laws  of  exchanges 
in  the  dynamical  part  would  result.    History  would 
supply  the  facts,  the  dynamical  logic  their  explana- 
tion ;   history  the  material  for  induction,  and  facts 
for  the  verification  of  laws ;   the  dynamical  logic  the 
principles  and  theory  to  be  verified.      The  general 
laws  of  values  or  prices  are  the  common  ground  where 
the  logic  and  the  history  meet,  and  in  which  they 
ought  ultimately  to  show  concordant  results.   But  the 
statical  logic  is  the  foundation  of  the  whole  enquiry. 

II .  It  is,  then,  only  with  the  statical  logic,  its 
general  distinctions,  methods,  and  laws,  that  I  pro- 
fess to  have  to  do  here  ;  and  with  this  only  so  far 
as  may  be  necessary  for  the  purposes  explained  in 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  285 

par.  I ;  even  this,  I  fear,  will  occupy  more  space  than       book  n. 
may  to  many  seem  proportionate  to  the  rest  of  the         —  ' 
book.     What  then  is  the  first  organic  distinction  in       Political 
the  object -matter?     It  must  be  observed  that  the        <^""°"^y- 
actions  are  dealings  between  men,  and  in  this  respect 
similar  to  the  object-matter  of  the  science  last  exa- 
mined, namely,  language.     The  exchanges  between 
men  may  be  distinguished  from  the  means  by  which 
they  are  effected,  just  as  the  sounds  of  language  from 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  they  express   and 
communicate.     This  distinction  seems  to  arise  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case ;  and  in  political  economy 
we  find  it  quite  as  applicable  as  in  philology.     Com- 
modities are  broadly  distinguished  by  it  into  two 
classes;   on  the  one  side  is  that  commodity  which  is 
the  universal  purchaser,  the  means  of  exchanging  all 
the  rest ;    on  the  other  are  the  other  commodities 
which  it  purchases. 

12.  Founded  on  this  broad  distinction  between 
the  commodities  arises  a  distinction  between  two 
branches  of  the  logic  ;  the  first  containing  those  dis- 
tinctions and  laws  of  value  which  are  of  universal 
applicability,  valid  whether  money  is  used  to  purchase 
and  exchano;e  other  thino;s  or  not :  the  second  con- 
taining  those  which  flow  from  the  nature  and  use  of 
money,  as  universal  purchaser  and  means  of  circula- 
tion. Two  aspects  of  the  logic  are  thus  disclosed,  for 
the  entire  phenomena  might  be  treated  from  either 
side.  But  in  the  first  we  have  laws  and  distinctions 
of  a  more  general  nature  than  any  which  are  peculiar 
to  the  second  ;  and  under  which  those  of  the  second 
may  be  shown  to  fall,  as  cases  or  instances  of  them. 
It  is  requisite  to  begin  with  the  more  general ;  but 
these  in  their  turn  will,  in  one  way,  depend  upon  the 


286 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§94. 

Political 

Economy. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


laws  and  distinctions  arising  in  money;  namely,  the 
modes  of  value  belonging  to  them  will  be  estimated 
and  expressed  in  money  value,  that  is,  as  prices,  as 
in  a  lano;uao;e  which  has  become  current  and  intel- 
ligible. 

13.  Or  the  same  division  may  be  reached  by  an- 
other way,  namely,  by  adopting  Mr.  Macleod's  three- 
fold distinction  of  exchangeable  quantities,  in  his 
Theor}^  and  Practice  of  Banking,  Chap.  i.  §  3.  into 
commodities,  services,  and  debts.  The  first  branch 
of  the  subject  will  include  commodities  and  services, 
the  second  debts.  The  distinction  between  com- 
modities and  services  will  be  found  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  analysis  of  the  first  branch  ;  the 
difi"erence  in  nature  between  these  two  kinds  of  ex- 
changeable quantities  gives  rise  to  difi^erences  in  the 
mode  of  their  remuneration,  and  in  the  requirements 
of  the  persons  who  are  their  holders. 

§95.- 

"  You  can't  eat  your  cake  and  have  it  too." 

Old  Proverb. 


1.  To  becrin  with  the  first  and  o-eneral  branch  of 
the  subject,  what  are  the  principles  and  distinctions 
governing  the  reasoning  about  acquisition,  or,  in 
other  words,  what  are  the  first  outlines  of  the  logic 
of  political  econom)^  ?  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  De 
Quincey's  Logic  of  Political  Economy,  which  toge- 
ther with  his  Templar's  Dialogues  is  professedly  an 
exposition  of  Ricardo's  doctrines,  is  the  only  work 
in  which  these  principles  and  distinctions  are  exhi- 
bited with  an  adequate  perception  of  their  import- 
ance as  the  dominant  principles  of  the  whole  science. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PrwVCTICAL  SCIENCES.  287 

The  lo""ical  centre  of  the  whole  suhiect  is  the  nature       uookii. 

Cn  lY. 

of  Exchano;e  Value.       The    most   usual    method   of         — — " 
treating  the   subject  is  to   begin  with  commodities    statical  logic 
generally,  their  mode  of  production,  the  division  of    °    '       "^ ' 
labour,  so  as  to  produce  them  better,  their  distribu- 
tion among  different  classes  of  the  community,  the 
elements  of  their  production,  land,   labour,  capital, 
and  so  on,  before  entering  on  the  question   of  ex- 
changes.     The   wealth,   it  is   said,   must  first  exist 
before  it  can  be   exchanged,  and  we   ought  to   see 
how  it  exists,  and  what  are  its  characteristics,  before 
entering  on  the  dealings  of  men  with  each  other  in 
respect  of  it.   (See  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Pol. 
Econ.  Book  iii.  Chap.  i.  §  1).     But  this  is  to  enter 
on  questions  subsidiary  to  political  economy.    It  may 
be  the  best  method,  for  practical  exposition,  to  begin 
with  these  subsidiary  phenomena;  but  political  eco- 
nomy is  not  entered  on  until  the  dealings  of  men 
with  men  in  respect  to  wealth  are  treated.     Wealth 
in  the  wide  sense,  commodities  having  value-in-use, 
are  of  two  kinds,  those  which  are  accjuisible  from 
nature  only,   and  those   which   are   acquisible  from 
man  as  well  as  from  nature.     Those  of  the  first  class 
have  values-in-use   only,  those  of  the   second  have 
exchange  values  as  well.     But  the  clealino-s  of  man 
with  nature  alone  can  hardly  be  the  object  of  poli- 
tical economy;  they  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  ethic, 
for  these  embrace  all  human  acts,  and  to  those  of 
politic,  so  far  as  they  have  results  bearing  on  other 
men.     But  political  economy,  being  subordinate  to 
politic,  considers  property  to  be  already  established, 
everything  which  can  be  separately  possessed  to  be 
already  provided  with  a  possessor,  or  at  least  with  a 
possible  legal  claimant,  a  claim  which  may  have  its 


288  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      value  and  its  price.     Only  within  the  limits  of  leo-al 

Ch.  IV.  i.  J  o 

—  *       possession,   though    indifferent   as   to  who  the   pos- 
staticai  logic    scssors  mav  be,  indifferent  to  systems  of  private  or 

Or  f ^ f  11  fi n o*p 

systems  of  Communistic  property,  is  pohtical  eco- 
nomy possible  ;  consequently  all  acquisition  within 
its  limits  must  be  from  man  as  well  as  from  nature. 
Now  all  commodities  havino;  exchangee  value  include, 
as  a  cause  of  that  value,  some  value-in-use ;  conse- 
quently their  value-in-use  has  to  be  considered  as  a 
part  of  the  whole  question  of  their  exchange  value. 
See  the  admirable  distinction  between  the  two  senses 
of  the  term  value-in-use,  one  in  which  it  is  o2:)posed 
to  exchange  value,  the  other  in  which  it  is  opposed 
to  D  as  the  other  element  which,  together  with  it, 
composes  exchange  value,  in  De  Quincey's  Logic  of 
Pol.  Econ.  Chap.  i.  Sect.  vi.  The  term  'exchange 
value'  is  that  adopted  by  Mr.  Mill,  as  an  improve- 
ment on  the  clumsier  '  value-in-exchange.'  If  now 
value-in-use,  or  commodities  acquired  from  nature 
alone,  were  taken  as  the  starting-point,  or  logical 
centre  of  organisation,  the  science  would  come  out 
logically  as  a  science  of  the  whole  doing  and  working 
of  man,  as  a  science  of  practice  generally. 

2.  Similarly  it  may  be  said  of  labour,  by  which 
man  wins  or  appropriates  values-in-use  from  nature, 
that  alone  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  political  economy. 
Like  value-in-use  it  is  only  as  a  cause  of  exchange 
value  that  it  belongs  to  the  science.  As  there  is  no 
exchange  value  which  is  not  founded  on  some  value- 
in-use,  so  there  is  none  which  is  not  founded  on  some 
labour,  be  it  only  the  easiest  labour  of  appropriation 
or  preservation.  In  these  two  opposite  causes  of 
exchange  value  lies  the  connection  of  political  eco- 
nomy with  the  outer  world  of  natural  phenomena 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


289 


and  their  laws,  which  are  the  condition  of  its  ex- 
istence and  the  limit  of  its  powers.  As  such  causes 
they  must  never  be  lost  sight  of;  forget  them,  and 
political  economy  drifts  anchorless  as  a  cloud.  We 
may  begin  with  them  if  we  choose,  but  it  must  be 
for  the  sake  of  applying  them  to  the  analysis  of  ex- 
change value ;  while,  if  we  begin  with  the  analysis 
of  exchange  value,  the  logical  method,  we  must  carry 
it  up  to  its  causes  in  the  outer  world,  and  end  with 
labour  and  value-in-use,  as  the  ultimate  foundations 
upon  which  every  instance  of  exchange  value  rests, 
as  the  basis  of  the  supervening  fluctuations.  Apply- 
ins:  therefore  the  old  distinction  between  nature  and 
history,  I  take  the  nature  of  exchange  value  as  the 
centre  of  the  science,  and  starting  point  of  the  en- 
quiry. 

3.  The  elements  in  analysis  of  exchange  value 
are  these  two :  the  value-in-use  of  the  commodity  in 
question,  which  is  called  U,  and  the  difficulty  or  ob- 
stacles to  its  acquisition,  called  D.  Both  elements, 
U  and  D,  are  taken  subjectively,  that  is,  as  they  are 
estimated  by  the  parties  to  the  exchange;  and  this 
is  true  of  all  their  subdivisions.  The  purchaser  has 
his  estimate  of  U,  and  so  has  the  seller ;  the  pur- 
chaser has  his  estimate  of  D,  and  so  has  the  seller. 
Now  the  elements  of  U  may  be  any  of  the  innumer- 
able satisfactions  possible  to  man.  But  the  elements 
of  D  vary  according  to  more  fixed  conditions.  These 
may  be  all  summed  up  as  the  U  of  the  seller  or  pos- 
sessor of  the  commodity,  its  value-in-use  to  him, 
either  to  enjoy  or  to  reserve  for  a  better  market; 
which  clearly  makes  or  sums  up  the  D  of  the  buyer, 
the  obstacle  which  he  must  overcome  if  he  wishes  to 
purchase.   Every  exchange  is  thus  a  balance  between 

VOL.  n.  u 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


290  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      XJ  and  U,  the  D  of  the  purchaser  consisting  in  the 

—         U  of  the  seller,  while  the  D  of  the  seller  consists  in 

Statical  logic    the  U  of  the  buyer  decreasino;  or  vanishing.     It  is 

of  exchange.  ^  *-"  ,  „     . 

well  however  always  to  speak  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  purchaser  or  acquirer,  when  speaking  of  U 
and  D,  in  order  to  avoid  confusion.  Then,  and  from 
this  point  of  view,  the  existence  of  some  kind  and 
degree  of  U,  or  estimated  utility,  is  necessary  to  every 
exchange ;  without  it  or  below  it  no  commodity  would 
command  a  price,  even  at  the  minimum  of  D ;  and 
beyond  or  above  it  the  maximum  of  D  will  fail  to 
enhance  the  price.  U  therefore,  from  the  acquirer's 
pomt  of  view,  is  the  condition  sine  qua  non,  D  the 
limiting  or  determining  condition,  fixing  the  point 
in  U  at  which  the  acquisition  is  made,  the  estimate 
of  the  exchange  value  of  the  commodity,  that  is,  the 
price,  if  reckoned  in  money. 

4.  From  the  acquu^er's  point  of  view,  D  is  always 
the  governing  or  limiting  element  of  the  value.  D 
consists  in  the  resistance  offered  by  the  seller,  but 
it  is  caused  by  various  considerations,  or  is  deter- 
mined by  different  elements  at  different  times,  ac- 
cording to  the  nature  of  the  commodity  in  question. 
There  are  two  heads  under  which  all  cases  may  be 
brought ;  the  first  is  where  the  commodity  is  unique, 
or  stringently  limited  in  quantity  or  number;  the 
second  where  it  may  be  multiplied  indefinitely  by 
increased  application  of  labour  and  capital.  The  first 
head  includes  only  those  cases  where  the  price  is 
fixed  by  the  varying  estimates  of  the  value-in-use 
of  the  commodity,  and  by  the  consequent  resistance 
of  sellers  in  comparison  with  the  insistance  of  pur- 
chasers, the  quantity  of  the  commodity  bemg  fixed ; 
the  second  head  includes  the  cases  where,  besides  or 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


291 


beyond  this,  the  varying  degrees  of  difficulty  in  ac-      p.ook  n. 
quiring  the  commodity  from  nature  modify  the  resist-         -^—  ' 
ance  of  sellers,  the  quantity  of  the  commodity  being    statical  logic 
variable.     And  this  second  head  again  falls  into  two    °  ^^^  ^'^ 
branches,  according  as  the  difficulty  of  acquiring  the 
commodity  from  nature,   or  the  fluctuations  in  its 
supply  from  time  to  time,  are  the  predominant  ele- 
ment in  the  D  of  its   exchange  value.      We   have 
thus  three  classes   of  exchanges;   1st,  where  the  D 
consists   entirely  in   the    scarcity  or   uniqueness   of 
the    commodity ;    2nd,   where  it   consists    chiefly  in 
the  difficulty    of  acquiring  it   from  nature,    but    is 
modified  by  the    temporary   fluctuations    of  supply 
and  demand;   3rd,  where  it  is  based  upon  the' diffi- 
culty of  acquiring  it  from  nature,  but  chiefly  deter- 
mined by  the  quantity  which  is  from  time  to  time 
demanded  compared  to  that  which  is  from  time  to 
time  supplied. 

5.  The  first  class  of  cases  is  by  far  the  simplest. 
The  commodities  belonging  to  it  form  a  very  small 
part  of  the  whole  comprised  in  political  economy; 
the  consumer's  prices  of  them  are  not  business  but 
fancy  prices,  depending  on  fashion  and  taste.  De 
Quincey's  musical  box  on  Lake  Superior  is  a  per- 
fect instance.  Speculation  is  entirely  excluded  from 
these  cases  of  exchange,  because,  if  the  commodities 
in  question  were  procured  with  a  view  to  sell  them 
for  a  profit,  D  would  then  depend  upon  difficulty  of 
production,  and  a  minimum  price  would  be  fixed  by 
the  cost  of  production  and  bringing  to  market.  Such 
cases  would  fall  at  once  under  one  or  other  of  the 
two  remaining  classes.  Works  of  fine  art,  old  china, 
rare  books,  mne  of  famous  vintages,  are  among  the 
chief  commodities  of  the  class,  but  not  as  ofl'ered  for 


292 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IT. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 


sale  by  regular  dealers  in  them.     Two  cases  of  ex- 
change belong  to  it;  either  there  are  several  intend- 
statfcaiiogic    ing  purchasers,  or  there   is  only  one.      In  the  first 

of  exchange.  ,  .   .  „    ,  ,  •  i      j^ 

case,  the  competition  oi  the  purchasers  is  what  con- 
stitutes the  D,  the  difficulty  of  attainment  by  any 
one  of  them ;  the  seller's  knowledge  of  this  compe- 
tition enables  him  to  insist  on  a  high  price,  which 
rises  till  it  reaches  that  point  of  the  joint  U  of  the 
purchasers  where  only  one  purchaser  continues  to 
have  an  U  at  all,  the  others  dropping  off  as  the  price 
increases.  The  resistance  offered  by  the  seller  is  the 
D ;  this  continues  until  the  seller  is  afraid  of  its  ex- 
ceeding the  highest  U  of  the  purchasers,  beyond  which 
there  Avould  be  no  bargain.  The  value  is  thus  mea- 
sured off  on  U  by  the  action  of  D ;  it  consists  in  the 
U  of  the  actual  purchaser,  but  is  determined  by  D, 
the  knowledge  which  the  seller  has  of  the  various 
estimates  of  U  by  the  intending  purchasers.  In  the 
second  case  there  are  only  two  persons  bargaining, 
one  purchaser  only.  Here  the  D  is  still  fixed  by 
competition,  for  the  seller  himself  stands  in  the  place 
of  a  purchaser,  and  brings  his  U  into  competition 
with  that  of  the  other  party.  If  the  purchaser  does 
not  offer  a  sufficiently  high  price,  he  will  purchase 
it  himself,  that  is,  keep  it  unsold.  It  is  still  D  which 
fixes  the  price,  when  a  bargain  takes  place,  in  virtue 
of  this  competition  of  the  seller  himself 

6.  I  am  aware  that  De  Quincey  considers,  in  these 
cases,  U  as  the  determining  and  D  as  the  determined 
element,  and  not  vice  versa;  and  it  is  true  that  the 
estimates  of  value-in-use  are  that  which  is  operative. 
But  the  estimates  of  value-in-use  are  made  by  both 
sides,  and  are  common  to  both ;  it  is  not  the  U  of 
the  buyer  but  the  U  of  the  seller  which  determines 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  293 

the  price,  or,  if  the  U  of  the  buyer,  yet  this  as  esti-  book  it. 
mated  by  the  seller;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  exchange,  -^  * 
when  U  and  D  are  distributed  to  buyer  and  seller,    statical  logic 

,      .  .  .  .of  exchange. 

D  is  the  determinant,  although  it  consists  m  an  esti- 
mate of  value-in-use.  Besides  which  it  may  be  re- 
marked, that  the  IT  of  the  last  purchaser  is  not 
exhausted  by  the  price  at  which  he  purchases  ;  if 
the  seller  were  to  hold  out  longer,  the  price  might 
rise  still  higher,  and  it  is  only  the  fear  of  the  seller 
that  it  will  not  do  so  which  forces  him  to  conclude 
the  bargain.  This  however  exhausts  ipso  facta  the 
whole  D;  D  ceasing  measures  off  a  portion  of  U; 
and  not  U  a  portion  of  D ;  since  the  whole  of  U  is 
not  measured  by  the  price  arrived  at.  There  is  thus 
uniformity  in  the  operations  of  all  three  classes  of 
exchanges,  for  it  will  be  seen  that,  where  D  depends 
on  difficulty  of  production,  D  and  not  U  is  the  de- 
termining element. 

7.  The  second  and  third  classes  of  cases  of  ex- 
change, differing  only  in  the  degree  of  influence 
exercised  on  price  by  difficulty  of  production,  may  be 
treated  together,  so  far  as  the  principle  constituting 
them,  and  distinguishing  them  from  the  first  class,  is 
concerned.  They  include  exchanges  of  all  commodi- 
ties which  are  producible  at  pleasure  by  a  proportion- 
ate expenditure  of  cajiital  and  labour,  the  quantities 
of  which  therefore  are  variable,  and  the  supply  open  to 
competition  among  producers.  It  is  not  necessary  at 
this  moment  to  enter  upon  the  further  distinction  be- 
tween commodities  of  this  kind,  into  those  producible 
in  amounts  which  preserve  an  equal  ratio  to  the  ad- 
ditional capital  and  labour  expended  and  those  pro- 
ducible in  amounts  whose  ratio  to  the  additional 
labour  and  capital  expended  is  continually  decreas- 


294  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      ino".     This  distinction  will  find  its  proper  place  far- 

Ch.  rv.  »  r      r        J. 

—        ther  on  (par.  64). 
staticaiiogic  8.   The  producibility  of  commodities  at  pleasure 

of  exchange.  ^  .  pit  t 

by  a  proportionate  expenditure  ot  labour  and  capi- 
tal, rendering  their  supply  variable,  and  admitting  of 
competition  among  the  producers  or  holders  of  them, 
gives  efiiciency  to  the  element  of  difiiculty  of  pro- 
duction, expressed  as  cost  of  production,  in  deter- 
mining their  prices.  It  enables  us  farther  to  analyse 
the  exchanges  of  them,  in  their  U  and  D  elements, 
and  to  distinguish  in  the  resulting  prices  two  parts, 
one  due  to  the  difiiculty  or  cost  of  production,  which 
has  been  called  the  natural  price,  the  other  due  to 
the  fiuctuations  of  supply  and  demand  at  difi'erent 
times  and  places,  which  results  in  oscillations  about 
the  natural  price,  and  together  with  it,  or  on  its  basis, 
composes  the  market  prices  at  which  the  commodities 
are  actually  sold  from  time  to  time. 

9.  To  begin  with  the  concrete  market  price  or 
value  of  a  commodity  of  this  kind.  U  is  still  the 
determined,  D  the  determining,  element  in  its  value. 
But  the  case  is  complicated  in  this  way.  In  the  first 
place,  U  is  not  only  the  value-in-use  estimated  by 
the  purchaser  for  himself,  but  the  value-in-use  to 
manufacture  or  employ  in  industry,  or  the  exchange 
value  to  sell  again,  where  the  prices  in  future  markets 
must  be  taken  into  account.  D  again  is  complicated 
in  a  similar  way ;  it  consists  not  only  in  competition 
of  purchasers,  but  also  in  competition  of  sellers,  which 
tends  to  diminish  it.  The  sellers  come  into  the  mar- 
ket with  as  strong  an  interest  in  selling  as  the  buyers 
in  buying.  Hence  the  interest  and  competition, 
known  to  both  parties,  and  corresponding  to  the 
competition  among  buyers,  combine  with  it  in  de- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


295 


termining  D,  the  difficulty  of  attainment.  Added  to 
this  is  the  distinction  in  D  arising  from  the  variable- 
ness of  supply.  As  in  every  exchange  there  must 
be  some  value-in-use,  as  the  sine  qua  non  of  U,  so  in 
every  exchange  of  commodities  of  the  present  kind 
there  is  a  sine  qua  non  of  D,  an  element  of  difficulty 
which  fixes  a  minimum,  below  which  the  exchange 
value  cannot  permanently  fall  without  causing  the 
commodity  to  vanish  from  the  market.  This  sine 
qua  non  is  the  labour  of  production,  measured  and 
expressed  by  the  cost  of  production.  The  compe- 
tition of  producers,  the  supply  being  variable,  is 
directed  to  diminish  this  cost,  so  as  to  enable  them 
to  offer  the  commodity  at  the  lowest  price,  which 
must  cover  this  cost,  including  their  profits,  or  remu- 
neration for  placing  it  in  the  market.  The  effect  is 
to  distinguish  in  the  total  or  market  price  a  mini- 
mum amount,  or  part  of  the  price,  below  which  the 
commodity,  ceasing  to  be  remunerative,  will  cease  to 
be  produced. 

lo.  D,  thus  determined  and  thus  distinguished 
into  its  two  elements, — competition  among  purchasers 
compared  to  competition  among  sellers,  and  cost  of 
production, — marks  off  on  U  the  point  at  which  the 
exchange  is  effected,  the  actual  price  of  the  commo- 
dity. U  and  D  gather  up  the  purchaser's  knowledge 
on  one  side,  the  seller's  on  the  other,  and  through 
these  estimates  the  exchange  is  effected.  The  price 
itself  by  the  same  means  becomes  distinguishable  into 
the  basis  or  minimum,  fixed  by  cost  of  production, 
and  the  oscillations  about  that  basis,  which  can  never 
fall  permanently  below  it  to  any  extent,  and  never 
rise  permanently  above  it  to  a  great  extent,  without 
in  the  first  case  stopping  the  production,  in  the  second 


BookH. 
Cii.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


296 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


Ijringing  additional  producers  into  the  market,  and 
so  reducing  the  excess  of  price.  These  oscillations 
about  the  natural  price  are  due  to  competition  be- 
tween purchasers  compared  to  competition  between 
sellers,  that  is,  to  demand  compared  to  supply.  The 
market  price  as  a  whole  is  determined  by  the  quan- 
tity demanded  compared  to  the  quantity  suppHed; 
but  it  may  be  analysed  into  component  elements, 
natural  price  determined  by  cost  of  production,  and 
oscillations  about  that  basis  due  to  variations  in  the 
supply  and  demand.  And  we  must  accordingly  dis- 
tinguish between  two  senses  of  the  term  '  supply  and 
demand,'  the  one  when  it  means  the  determinant  of 
market  price  as  a  whole,  the  other  when  it  means  the 
determinant  of  oscillations  about  the  natural  price, 
which  are  but  one  element  of  the  total  market  price. 
II .  I  wish  now  to  apply  to  this  analysis  the  dis- 
tmctions  pointed  out  in  §  94.  6 ;  whereby  the  perfect 
harmony  between  them  will  become  apparent.  The 
analysis  began  with  stating  the  thing  to  be  analysed, 
the  market  price  of  commodities  producible  at  plea- 
sure and  therefore  variable  in  quantity.  The  two  ele- 
ments of  this  market  price  were  then  distinguished, 
natural  price  and  the  oscillations  about  it  This 
analysis  leads  us  to  ask  the  conditions  which  regulate 
the  two  elements ;  and  the  first  element,  natural 
price,  is  determined  by  the  physical  laws  which  limit 
production,  laws  of  nature  extraneous  to  political 
economy,  which  determine  the  acquisition  of  commo- 
dities having  value-in-use  from  nature  alone.  This 
is  a  condition  limitmg  man's  power  of  production 
generally,  and  consequently  the  production  of  com- 
modities having  exchange  value.  The  relation  of 
natural  price  to  market  price  is  now  evident;  it  is 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEXCES. 


297 


not  only  an  element  in  its  composition,  but  that  ele- 
ment which  depends  on  laws  of  nature  extraneous 
to  political  economy.  Market  price  anticipated  is 
the  final  cause  of  production ;  production  is  an  effi- 
cient cause  of  market  price  ;  and  the  difficulty  of 
production,  which  is  itself  measured  and  expressed 
by  cost  of  production,  is  the  measure  of  the  energy 
with  which  this  efficient  cause  operates  upon  market 
price,  appearmg  as  that  part  of  it  which  is  called 
natural  price.  Treating  then,  as  we  have  done,  all 
exchanges  as  dealings  between  men,  governed  by 
final  causes,  and  beginning  accordingly  with  market 
price  as  the  result,  and  the  anticipated  result,  of 
those  dealings,  we  may  characterise  them  all,  in  the 
first  place,  as  cases  of  a  relation  between  supply  and 
demand,  inasmuch  as  they  are  cases  of  transaction 
between  suppliers  and  demanders.  In  this  view  we 
may  say  universally,  that  a  commodity  is  not  de- 
manded because  it  has  been  produced,  but  that  it 
is  produced  because  it  is  expected  to  be  demanded. 
The  market  price  is  the  first  thing  to  be  considered 
in  treating  exchanges  as  voluntary  actions  or  matters 
of  practice.  But  this  treatment  of  the  case  brings 
us  in  the  next  place  to  the  conditions  imposed  by 
nature  upon  such  production,  to  the  roots  which 
exchanges  have  in  the  world  extraneous  to  political 
economy;  and  here  it  is  found  that  one  part  of  market 
price  is  fixed  by  nature,  namely,  the  part  answering 
to  the  labour  or  difficulty  of  production,  expressed 
and  measured  by  its  cost. 

12.  It  is  the  more  necessary  to  insist  upon  the 
distinction  between  the  final  cause  of  production  and 
the  natural  difficulty  or  cost  of  production,  because 
the  latest  opponent  of  Ricardo's  theory  of  value,  Mr. 


Book  U. 
Cii.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


298  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

BooKiL       Macleod,  seems  to  have  become  so  from  neojlectino- 
Ch.  rv.  '  _  7  . 

—         it.     He  sees  no  difference  between  the  anticipated 

Statical  logic    market  price  reo;ulatino;  "  the  g-reatest  cost  of  produc- 
er exchange.  x  o  o  o  x. 

tion  that  can  be  afforded"  (Elements  of  PoL  Econ. 
p.  114)  and  its  regulating  the  cost  of  production 
itself.  True,  it  regulates  the  action  of  men  on  the 
condition  of  a  given  cost  of  production,  but  it  cannot 
regulate  this  condition  itself,  which  is  imposed  by 
the  resistance  offered  by  nature  to  human  energies. 
And,  since  this  resistance  may  be  overcome  to  an  in- 
definite extent  by  additional  energy  being  expended, 
while  the  energy  exj)ended  may  be  measured  as  cost, 
the  cost  becomes  a  distinguishable  part  of  the  price, 
which  must  be  of  that  amount  at  least,  in  order  to 
be  a  motive  for  expending  the  energy  and  producing 
the  commodity.  The  cost  of  production  is  a  cause 
contributino-  to  determine  the  motive,  as  well  as  the 
motive  a  cause  contributing  to  determine  the  produc- 
tion. 

13.  While  therefore  with  Mr.  Macleod,  and  indeed 
I  believe  with  all  political  economists,  for  Ricardo's 
system  contains  nothing  to  the  contrary,  it  may  be 
laid  down  as  the  first  and  universally  valid  law  of 
exchanges,  as  matters  of  human  practice,  that,  in 
order  to  fix  the  value  of  any  commodity,  there  is 
requisite  a  certain  relation  between  the  quantity  sup- 
plied and  the  quantity  demanded,  it  must  be  main- 
tained at  the  same  time,  that  this  relation  itself 
depends  upon  conditions,  extraneous  to  the  science  of 
political  economy,  which  have  a  definite  effect  upon 
the  supply,  which  definite  efi'ect  is  distinguishable  in 
the  value  under  the  name  of  natural  value  or  price. 
This  distinction  is  a  further  analysis  of  the  market 
price,  as  well  as  a  further  analysis  of  the  relation  be- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  rRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


299 


tween  the  supply  and  the  demand.  That  the  value 
or  price  of  anythmg  arises  in  a  certain  relation  be- 
tween the  supply  and  demand  of  it  may  be  called  the 
first  law  of  political  economy,  because  it  is  the  most 
general  fact  concerning  exchanges  ;  a  law  or  fact 
which  can  only  be  analysed  farther  by  going  back 
from  the  nature,  or  first  analysis,  of  exchanges  into 
their  conditions  or  causes,  which  are  then  seen  re- 
flected in  the  further  and  more  complete  analysis. 
And  this  regress  into  their  conditions  lays  bare  the 
distinction  between  commodities  producible  at  plea- 
sure, and  therefore  variable  in  quantity,  and  commo- 
dities unique  or  stringently  limited  in  quantity,  and 
therefore  such  that  their  cost  of  production  is  no  lon- 
ger operative  on  their  price.  Ricardo's  law  of  value 
is  as  universal  in  its  principle  as  that  on  which  alone 
Mr.  Macleod  insists ;  but  since  it  is  a  law  founded  on 
a  further  distinction  in  the  object-matter  embraced 
by  the  other  law,  namely,  the  distinction  of  commo- 
dities fixed  and  commodities  variable  in  quantity,  the 
results  which  it  affirms  of  the  one  kind  of  commodi- 
ties it  necessarily  denies  of  the  other ;  which  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  its  being,  as  Mr.  Macleod  seems 
to  suppose,  (page  125),  applicable  only  to  one  kind 
of  commodities  and  not  to  the  other.  While  there- 
fore the  two  laws  are  equally  universal  they  are  not 
inconsistent,  but,  in  political  economy,  Ricardo's 
law,  that  the  quantity  of  labour  is  the  sole  efficient 
cause  of  value,  with  its  corollary,  that  cost  of  pro- 
duction determines  natural  price,  is  a  further  ex- 
plication and  analysis  of  the  law,  that  supply  and 
demand  is  the  sole  regulator  of  value ;  for  the  latter 
treats  exchanges  solely  as  matters  of  human  practice 
and  volition,  while  the  former  treats  them  as  condi- 


BooK  ir. 

Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  lot^ic 
of  exchaiitrt'. 


300 


LOGIC  OF  THE  TRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95, 
Statical  logic 
of  excIiaiiKe. 


tioned  also  by  laws  of  nature  extraneous  to  political 
economy. 

14.  There  are  only  two  opinions  which  can  be 
held  respecting  natural  price,  either  that  it  is,  as 
here  maintained,  a  real  component  element  of  market 
price,  or  that  it  is  a  term  mistakenly  applied  to  a 
mere  average  price,  deducible  from  a  sufficiently  long 
series  of  exchanges,  which  is  the  opinion  held  by 
Mr.  Macleod,  Elements,  p.  210.  Since  1  am  wri ting- 
on  political  economy  in  connection  with  metaphysic, 
I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  illustrate  this  difference 
of  opinion  by  one  which  is  still  under  discussion  there. 
Time  and  space  in  perceived  objects  are  held  by  some 
metaphysicians  to  be  mere  abstractions  from  the  ob- 
jects themselves,  and  their  apparent  universality  and 
necessity  to  be  nothing  more  than  consequences  of 
our  having,  as  it  happens,  always  perceived  objects, 
in  relation  to  each  other,  in  sequence  of  time  and 
juxtaposition  of  space ;  and  this  opinion  corresponds 
to  that  which  maintains  the  part  of  price  in  question 
to  be  a  mere  average,  abstracted  from  a  series  of 
fluctuations.  The  opposite  opinion,  that  this  part  of 
price  is  a  real  component  element  in  market  price, 
corresponds  on  the  other  hand  to  the  opinion,  which 
I  myself  maintain,  that  time  and  space  are  real  ele- 
ments in  every  perceived  object  itself,  however  minute, 
and  can  only  be  inferred,  generalised,  or  abstracted, 
from  experience,  because  they  are  first  perceived  in 
every  such  portion  of  it. 

15.  Let  us  now  see  what  sort  of  a  law  this  law 
of  supply  and  demand  is.  The  law  that  demand  tends 
to  call  forth  a  supply  to  satisfy  it,  and  that  supply 
tends  to  be  equal  to  demand;  and  farther,  that  the 
quantity  supplied  compared  to  the  quantity  demanded 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


301 


at  any  particular  place  and  time  is  tliat  which  regu- 
lates the  market  price;  or,  to  express  the  latter  part 
of  the  law  in  the  more  elaborate  words  of  Mr.  Mac- 
leod,  Elements,  p.  100,  that  "  Price  varies  directly  as 
the  intensity  of  the  service  rendered,  and  inversely 
as  the  power  of  the  buyer  over  the  seller;"  is  not  a 
law  analytic  but  only  descriptive  of  the  phenomena 
which  it  embraces.  It  is  a  law  which  "reigns  but 
does  not  govern."  It  tells  us  that  prices  tend  to  rise 
with  an  increase  of  demand  or  a  decrease  of  supply, 
and  vice  versa;  and  it  tells  us  that  an  enhanced  price 
will  tend  to  stimulate,  a  lowered  to  check,  supply. 
But  it  does  not  tell  us  what  proportion  the  changes 
in  price  will  bear  to  the  changes  in  supply  and  de- 
mand which  are  supposed  to  cause  them,  or,  in  other 
words,  to  what  extent  a  change  in  the  relation  be- 
tween the  quantities  demanded  and  supplied  will  cause 
a  change  in  the  price  which  results  from  it.  See  on 
this  point  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ. 
Book  iii.  Chap.  ii.  §  4.  And  also  Mr.  W.  T.  Thorn- 
ton's  proof  of  the  nullity  of  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand,  as  an  analytic  or  explanatory  law,  in  his 
work  On  Labour,  Book  ii.  Ch.  i.  Supply  and  demand 
is  but  another  expression  for  the  operation  of  ex- 
change itself.  It  regulates  price  in  the  same  sense 
as  the  act  of  exchange  regulates  it.  That  is  to  say, 
it  is  a  description  of  the  phenomena  which  are  to  be 
regulated,  rather  than  of  the  law  which  regulates 
them.  Whatever  the  proportion  between  supply  and 
demand  may  be,  whatever  causes  operate  to  raise  or 
lower  price,  whether  combination,  monopoly,  legal 
intervention,  taxation,  intimidation,  or  protection  in 
any  shape,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  holds  equally 
good,  for  all  such  causes  operate  upon  price  only  by 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


§  ■'5- 
Statical  Idf^nc 
of  exchaiiiic. 


302 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


95. 


changing  the  proportion  between  them.  It  is  one 
of  those  unfortunately  famous  "  immutable"  laws  of 
statujariogic  political  ecouomy,  which  we  are  continually  cautioned 
exc  ange.  ^^^^  ^^  violatc,  although  their  immutabiUty  consists 
in  nothing  else  than  in  the  impossibihty  of  violating 
them.  This  however  is  but  saying,  in  other  words, 
that  it  is  a  description  and  characterisation  of  the 
phenomena  in  general  terms,  or  terms  of  second  in- 
tention ;  a  description  which  needs  a  further  analysis, 
but  does  not  itself  supply  the  means  of  giving  one. 
Such  a  further  analysis  is  supplied  by  Ricardo's  law 
of  value,  and  by  the  corollaries  which  may  be  deduced 
from  it.  But  one  side  of  this  distinction,  the  oscil- 
lations of  market  price  about  natural,  has  not  yet 
been  reduced  by  observation  to  a  classification  suffi- 
ciently established  to  be  admitted  into  a  logic  of  the 
science.  It  remains  therefore  only  to  follow  the  thread 
of  natural  price,  which  will  be  found  to  exist  in  the 
case  of  all  commodities  and  all  services,  the  supply 
of  which  is  not  stringently  limited  but  may  be  in- 
creased or  diminished  at  pleasure. 


II. 

1 6.  The  whole  difiiculty  of  production  may  be 
included  in  the  words  Quantity  of  labour ;  the  differ- 
ences in  value  between  any  commodities  depend  upon 
the  diff'erent  quantities  of  labour  required  to  produce 
them.  But  differences  both  of  degree  and  kind  of 
irksomeness  must  be  considered  as  included  in  the 
general  expression,  quantity.  The  difiiculty  con- 
sists in  the  irksomeness  ;  and  this  irksomeness  or 
quantity  of  the  labour  is  that  which  hinders  a  man 
from  acquiring  commodities  by  labouring.  We  are 
here  on  the  solid  rock  of  human  nature  and  human 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


303 


motives.  The  question  of  analysing  the  difficulty  of 
production  is  therefore  the  question  of  analysing  the 
different  modes  and  degrees  of  labour.  Now  here 
the  term  labour  is  used  as  an  equivalent  to  the  term 
difficult}^  of  production  ;  there  is  another  sense  in 
which  it  is  used  as  opposed  to  Capital,  and  shares 
"with  capital  in  composing  the  difficulty  of  produc- 
tion; just  as  the  term  value-in-use  had  two  senses, 
one  as  the  contrary  to,  the  other  as  a  subordinate 
element  in,  exchange  value  (par.  i).  In  this  latter 
sense,  quantity  of  labour  remunerated  by  wages,  and 
capital  remunerated  by  profits,  compose  the  total 
difficulty  of  production  measured  by  cost  of  pro- 
duction. 

17.  Before  proceeding  to  the  second  sense  it  is 
requisite  to  dwell  somewhat  on  the  first  or  undivided 
sense  of  the  term  labour.  As  no  distinction  is  here 
introduced  into  labour,  beyond  that  of  different  kinds 
or  degrees  of  irksomeness,  so  it  is  also  with  the  la- 
bourers ;  the  producers  generally  are  undistinguished 
into  labourers  and  capitalists  employing  labour.  Here 
the  fundamental  and  most  general  proposition,  first 
established  by  Kicardo,  is  this :  that  the  natural  value 
of  any  commodity  depends  upon  the  quantity  of  the 
labour  producing  it,  including  in  quantity  degree  and 
mode  of  irksomeness,  which  quantity  is  measured  by 
the  natural  value  of  the  labour;  and  not  upon  the 
value  of  that  labour,  or  the  amount  of  commodities 
which  that  labour  will  purchase,  meaning  by  value 
in  this  case  the  market  value  of  labour  from  time  to 
time.  To  confound  or  neo-lect  this  distinction  is  to 
confound  the  distinction  between  nature  and  history, 
between  what  a  thing  is,  or  is  measured  by,  and  what 
it  causes  or  is  caused  by.     The  quantity  of  labour 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 


§  95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


304 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  TI. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


is  the  cause  of  the  value  of  the  commodity  produced 
by  it ;  that  commodity  is  equp,l  in  value  to  any  other 
commodity  produced  by  an  equal  quantity  of  labour ; 
but  both  these  commodities  are  greater  in  value  than 
the  labour  which  produced  them.  The  labour  pro- 
duces a  value  greater  than  its  own.  Here  we  come 
again  to  the  solid  rock,  in  this  case  to  the  physical 
laws  of  increase  in  natural  products.  It  is  often  said 
that  labour  is  a  commodity  like  other  commodities, 
and  so  it  is  in  the  sense  of  beino-  exchano-eable  for 
them ;  but  it  is  not  so  in  the  sense  of  having,  like 
them,  its  value  dependent  on  the  quantity  of  labour 
producing  it ;  for  it  is  not  produced  by  labour,  it  is 
labour  itself,  an  ultimate  source  of  value. 

1 8.  When  we  take  labour  in  this  general  sense, 
embracing  the  total  difficulty  of  production,  we  find 
the  same  distinctions  applicable  to  it  as  to  all  com- 
modities under  the  second  head  of  exchanges  (jmr.  7). 
It  has  both  a  market  and  a  natural  price,  and  its 
natural  price  is  governed  by  its  difficulty  of  produc- 
tion. But  here  we  come  to  the  circumstance  which 
is  the  source  of  most  of  the  confusion  between  quan- 
tity and  value  of  labour.  This  difficulty  of  produc- 
ing labour  consists  in  the  estimate  of  men,  the  lowest 
amount  of  coromodities  for  which  they  will  consent 
to  labour.  In  every  employment  there  is  a  minimum 
of  the  labourer's  requirements,  sometimes  this  mini- 
mum goes  as  low  as  the  bare  necessaries  of  existence, 
sometimes  includes  many  comforts  and  luxuries  as 
well.  But  in  every  case  there  is  a  minimum  of  re- 
quirement, and  this  minimum  is  the  natural  value 
or  price  of  the  labour.  Labour  then  produces  com- 
modities, but  the  expectation  of  commodities  pro- 
duces, calls  forth,  or  causes,  the  labour.      But  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


305 


commodities  expected  are  the  value  of  the  labour ; 
and  therefore  it  seems  that  there  is  a  lower  depth 
beyond  labour,  and  that  the  ultimate  cause,  in  ana- 
lysis of  the  conditions  of  value,  is  value  itself. 

19.  We  are  indeed  at  the  lowest  point  of  the 
analysis,  for  this  value,  the  natural  value  of  lal^our, 
is  at  once  the  cause  and  the  measiu'c  of  the  quantity 
of  labour  which  it  purchases  ;  the  cause  and  the 
measure  of  labour  are  identical.  It  is,  however,  be- 
cause the  labour  is  a  voluntary  act  of  a  conscious 
agent  that  there  is  this  identity  between  cause  and 
measure,  because  it  is  a  final  cause  that  is  here  the 
efficient  one.  And  because  of  this  identity  we  may 
take  henceforth  the  natural  value  of  labour,  which 
measures  its  quantity,  as  a  term  convertible  with  it, 
while  it  offers  at  the  same  time  the  convenience  of 
being  itself  measureable  by  other  values.  We  obtain 
an  expression  for  quantity  of  labour  in  terms  belong- 
ing to  political  economy  ;  that  is,  we  express  it  in 
terms  of  value. 

20.  But  now  to  point  out  a  distinction  which  has 
hitherto  been  overlooked,  and  the  neglect  of  Avhich 
enables  the  confusion  above  spoken  of  to  arise.  We 
see  well  enough  why  there  should  be  that  confusion, 
let  us  now  see  why  there  need  not  be.  When  it  is 
said  that  the  commodities  expected  are  the  value  of 
the  labour,  and  that  this  value  is  the  cause  of  the 
labour,  abstraction  is  made  of  the  value  of  those  com- 
modities in  other  commodities.  It  is  not  their  value 
as  against  other  commodities,  but  the  value  of  all 
commodities  alike  that  is  in  question ;  and  therefore 
the  value  which  is  the  ultimate  cause,  in  analysis  of 
the  conditions  of  value,  is  not  value  as  fixed  by  the 
fluctuations  of  supply  and  demand,  not  market  value 

VOL.  II.  X 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


306 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


of  commodities,  some  of  which  must  fall  if  others  rise 
and  rise  if  others  fall,  but  a  value  of  commodities 
generally  against  labour  alone,  that  is,  a  value-in-use, 
an  estimated  motive  of  action,  which  as  value-in-use, 
or  motive,  causes  the  quantity  of  labour  given  for  it, 
while  it  also  measures  it  as  exchange  value.  All  that 
is  done,  in  the  above  proof  that  value  and  not  labour 
is,  the  source  of  value  (par.  i8),  is  to  show  the  point 
and  the  mode  in  which  value-in-use  becomes  trans- 
formed, in  political  economy,  into  exchange  value. 
And  it  was  shown  that  value-in-use  and  physical 
conditions  of  increase  were  the  two  roots  by  which 
political  economy  is  founded  in  the  conditions  of 
the  outer  world,  and  on  which  its  exchange  values 
depend.  The  natural  exchange  value  of  labour  de- 
pends on  the  value-in-use  of  the  commodities  ob- 
tained by  it,  compared  with  the  counteracting  cause, 
the  irksomeness  of  the  labour. 

2 1 .  Equal  exchange  values  are  therefore  always 
the  product  of  equal  cjuantities,  or  equal  degrees  of 
irksomeness,  of  labour.  But  this  does  not  constitute 
labour  an  invariable  measure  or  standard  of  value; 
for  the  labour  is  not  capable  of  being  measured  by 
itself,  any  more  than  values-in-use  are ;  it  is  not  the 
thing  that  measures,  but  the  thing  that  is  measured 
by,  the  exchange  values  which  are  its  causes. 

2  2.  To  come  now  to  the  second  sense  of  the  term 
labour,  that  in  which  it  is  opposed  to  capital,  as  one  of 
the  two  constituents  of  difficulty  of  production.  Just 
as  it  was  a  difference  in  commodities  which  caused 
us  to  divide  them  under  the  two  heads  of  exchanges, 
namely,  into  those  which  are  and  those  which  are  not 
again  producible  by  additional  expenditure  of  labour, 
in  par.  4,  so  here  the  difference  between  labour  itself 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


307 


and  commodities  employed  by  labour  in  further  pro- 
duction is  the  ground  of  distinguishing  the  one  as 
labour,  the  other  as  capital.  Those  who  contribute 
labour  alone  are  now  called  labourers,  those  who  con- 
tribute capital  alone,  with  only  so  much  labour  as 
the  management  of  the  capital  requires,  are  now  called 
capitalists.  The  returns  to  capital  are  called  profits, 
which,  it  is  true,  include  the  wages  of  management, 
but  which  may  most  conveniently  be  opposed,  under 
the  name  of  profits,  to  the  wages  of  labour  alone,  if 
it  is  borne  in  mind  that  the  kind  and  degree  of  this 
labour  of  management  must  be  considered,  in  esti- 
mating the  profits  for  which  a  capitalist  will  consent 
to  contribute  to  production.  In  the  same  way  a  cer- 
tain capital  is  contributed  also  by  the  labourer,  if  he 
works  with  tools  belongino;  to  himself;  but  in  this 
case  too,  though  the  value  of  the  tools  must  be  con- 
sidered in  his  wages,  the  efi*ect  is  usually  so  small 
that  it  may  safely  be  abstracted  from. 

23.  The  true  distinction  between  capital  and  la- 
bour, capitalists  and  labourers,  must  be  drawn,  not 
from  the  labour  and  capital  themselves,  but  from  the 
remuneration  for  them,  and  from  the  mode  of  its  re- 
ceipt. Profits  are  in  one  sense  a  reward  for  skilled 
industry,  the  labour  of  management,  and  this  dis- 
tinguishes them  from  interest,  which  is  the  return 
to  the  capital  alone  exclusive  of  this  labour.  In  this 
sense  profits  are  of  the  same  nature  as  wages.  But 
the  diiFerence  is,  that  wages  proper,  as  distinguished 
from  profits,  whether  paid  for  skilled  or  for  unskilled 
labour,  are  a  fixed  and  previously  agreed  on  amount 
between  employer  and  employed,  while  profits  are 
an  unfixed  and  uncertain  residuum,  namely,  the  re- 
mainder of  the  Price,  or  gross  profits,  after  payment 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


308 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


of  the  wages.  When  the  employed  are  paid  by  a 
percentage  on  the  gross  profits,  they  may  in  one 
sense  be  said  to  be  sharers  in  the  business,  and  to 
be  paid  by  profits  not  by  wages.  The  percentage 
may  be  fixed,  but  the  sum  of  gross  profits  on  which 
it  is  reckoned  is  uncertain.  Still  the  agreed  per- 
centage is  wages  and  not  profits.  The  amount  the 
labourers  will  receive  may  be  called  profits,  being 
paid  out  of  the  gross  profits  of  the  whole  business 
and  varying  with  their  amount;  but  with  respect  to 
the  employer's  share  of  the  price  it  is  a  fixed  amount, 
and  the  agreement  made  with  him  as  to  the  rate  of 
pajanent,  the  percentage  on  the  gross  profits,  is  sub- 
ject to  the  same  laws  as  if  a  definite  sum  were  named, 
as  in  the  usual  case.  A  definite  agreement  with  the 
employer  -as  to  remuneration  makes  that  remunera- 
tion wages;  an  uncertain  residuum,  left  between  that 
agreement  and  the  price,  is  alone  properly  to  be 
called  profits.  The  question  now  is,  what  modifica- 
tions are  introduced  by  this  division  into  the  results 
of  the  general  laAv,  that  the  natural  value  of  com- 
modities depends  upon  the  quantity  of  labour  pro- 
ducing them. 

24.  Now  here  we  come  upon  a  very  remarkable 
circumstance,  found  in  all  cases  where,  as  in  Eng- 
land, labourers  and  capitalists  are  distinct  classes. 
Just  as  the  term  labour  has  two  senses  (par.  16), 
so  also  capital.  Capital  in  the  first  of  these  two 
senses  is  the  parallel  of  labour  in  the  first  sense; 
that  is,  it  includes  the  whole  difficulty  of  produc- 
tion. The  second  sense  is  that  which  has  been  al- 
ready explained,  as  opposed  to  labour  in  the  second 
sense.  But  as  to  capital  in  the  first  sense,  it  has 
been  shown  in  par.  1 8,  that  the  cause  producing  la- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


aou 


bour  is  wages ;  labour  being  the  cause  of  production 
of  all  other  commodities,  wages  are  the  cause  pro- 
ducing labour  itself,  that  is,  maintaining  its  agents 
and  inducing  them  to  work.  Now  all  wages  are  paid 
by  capital,  and  all  capital  is  expended  in  wages;  (Mr. 
J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.  Book  ii.  Ch.  xv. 
§  5).  In  other  words,  capital  is  coextensive  with 
wages,  another  characterisation  of  the  value  of  la- 
bour. Again,  the  returns  to  capital  are  profits;  but 
the  returns  to  capital  consist  in  the  price  of  the  com- 
modities produced,  all  of  which  is  in  the  first  instance 
paid  to  the  capitalist  employing  labour;  that  is,  the 
returns  to  capital,  or  profits,  consist  in  the  very  same 
thing  in  which  the  returns  to  labour,  in  the  first 
sense,  consist ;  the  same  price  of  the  goods  produced 
remunerates  and  causes  the  employment  of  both  the 
total  labour  and  the  total  capital.  Consequently  we 
have  in  labour  and  capital,  in  the  first  sense  of  the 
terms,  not  two  things,  but  one  thing  in  two  aspects; 
labour  the  thing  producing  commodities,  capital  the 
value  of  that  thinsf ;  and  airain,  in  the  commodities 
of  which  capital  consists,  we  have  the  cause  producing 
the  labour,  of  which  capital  is  the  value.  Capital  in 
its  first  intention,  meaning  certain  commodities,  is 
the  cause  producing  labour;  in  its  second  intention, 
is  the  measure  or  value  of  that  labour.  The  com- 
modities called  capital  have  two  functions,  one  in 
which  they  operate  as  motives  to  labour,  the  other 
in  which  they  measure  its  value. 

25.  As  capital  has  two  senses,  so  also  have  profits, 
which  are  its  remuneration;  the  returns  to  capital  in 
the  first  sense  are  gross,  in  the  second  net,  profits. 
The  gross  profits  are  the  price  of  the  commodities 
produced  ;    the  net  profits  are  that  portion   of  the 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


310 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 

Ch.  IV. 


95. 


of  exchange. 


price  retained  by  the  capitalist  after  paying  the 
wages  of  his  labourers  and  providing  for  the  repair 
statfcafiogic  or  replacement  of  his  stock.  In  net  profits  must  be 
reckoned  the  different  degrees  of  risk  in  different 
employments.  Risk  is  an  incident  in  capital  corres- 
ponding to  different  degrees  of  irksomeness  in  labour; 
the  return  for  the  one  is  higher  wages,  for  the  other 
higher  net  profits.  Both  circumstances  may  be  ab- 
stracted from  in  considering  the  rewards  of  labour 
and  of  capital  generally,  since  they  affect  only  the 
relations  between  wages  m  one  trade  and  wages  in 
another,  profits  in  one  trade  and  profits  in  another, 
leaving  the  relations  between  wages  and  profits  gener- 
ally unaffected.  There  is  however  this  difference  be- 
tween the  two  cases,  namely,  that  risk,  which  by 
itself  would  be  reckoned  to  net  profits,  causing  the 
capitalist  to  demand  a  higher  price,  may  be  in  many 
cases  covered  by  insurance ;  in  which  case  the  risk, 
if  the  expression  is  allowable,  is  capitalised,  that  is, 
the  sum  paid  for  insurance  is  added  to  the  capital 
advanced,  requiring  replacement  out  of  gross  profits, 
and  bearing,  like  the  rest  of  the  capital,  a  correspond- 
ing addition  to  net  profits.  The  advantage  is,  that 
this  addition  to  net  profits  is  both  fixed  by  rule  and 
comparatively  small,  instead  of  fixed  by  guess  and 
therefore  comparatively  large.  When  risk  is  covered 
by  insurance,  therefore,  we  may  reckon  the  insurance 
to  capital,  and  leave,  so  far,  no  difference  in  point  of 
risk,  or  net  profits,  to  abstract  from. 

16.  Now  since  the  problem  before  us  is  to  deter- 
mine the  elements  which  govern  the  price,  or  value, 
of  commodities,  so  far  as  that  price  depends  on  diffi- 
culty of  production,  and  the  price  is  another  name 
for  the  gross  profits  of  those  commodities,  we  have 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES.  311 

to  determine  what   o-overns  the  natural  amount  of      bookii. 

"  ,  Cii.  IV. 

gross  profits.     When  we  approached  from  the  side         -^ 
of  labour,   the   answer  was   the   quantity  of  labour;    staticaiiogic 

.,,  .  of  exchange. 

when  from  the  side  of  capital,  the  answer  is  the 
wages  of  labour.  But  neither  answer  is  sufficient, 
because  we  want  to  know,  not  how  the  determining 
elements  may  be  characterised,  nor  that  each  may  be 
characterised  in  terms  of  the  other,  but  what  they 
are  in  relative  amount,  what  the  amount  of  each  is, 
when  the  whole  is  really  analysed,  that  is,  divided 
into  capital  Avhich  is  not  labour  and  labour  which 
is  not  capital,  or,  in  other  words,  when  capital  and 
labour  are  taken  in  the  second  sense,  as  the  two  con- 
stituents of  difficulty  of  production.  • 

27.  In  this  sense,  the  value  of  labour  is  deter- 
mined by  the  requirements  of  the  labourers  ;  and 
similarly  net  profits  are  determmed  by  the  require- 
ments of  the  capitalists;  and  both  together  fix  the 
natural  or  minimum  value,  in  the  long  run,  of  the 
commodities  produced.  This  is  the  ultimate  ground 
beyond  which  we  cannot  go,  the  solid  rock  of  hu- 
man motives.  It  is  usual  to  say  that  the  net  profits 
which  will  content  the  capitalist  are  determined  by  the 
average  rate  of  profits  in  his  business,  and  that  this 
average  rate  is  maintained  by  the  flowing  of  more 
capital  into  employments  where  the  rate  is  rising 
and  likely  to  rise,  and  its  withdrawal  from  those 
where  it  is  sinking  and  likely  to  sink.  But  this  ac- 
counts only  for  the  libration  of  oscillations  about  the 
natural  amount  of  net  profits,  not  for  the  natural 
amount  itself.  The  natural  amount  depends  upon 
what  the  great  majority  of  capitalists  will  be  con- 
tent with ;  and  a  single  individual  has  no  power  to 
alter  this  amount,  not  because  it  is  not  determined 


312 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


by  human  motive  and  volition,  but  because  his  single 
volition  is  im^Dotent  against  that  of  the  vast  majority. 
He  has  no  choice  but  either  to  be  content  with  those 
profits  or  to  withdraw  from  business.  A  parallel  to 
this  has  been  seen  in  the  case  of  language ;  language 
depends  upon  the  combined  and  accumulated  voli- 
tions of  a  nation,  but  a  single  individual,  who  himself 
contributes  to  determine  it,  has  but  an  infinitesimal 
power  of  altering  the  language  spoken ;  he  must 
either  speak  as  others  do,  or  submit  not  to  be  under- 
stood (§  93.  i-j).  The  same  applies  to  the  wages 
of  labour  as  to  net  profits;  the  requirements  of  the 
majority  determine  what  each  individual  must  be  con- 
tent with.  When  therefore  we  approach  the  question 
from  the  side  in  which  labour  and  capital  are  divided, 
two  elements  of  difiiculty  of  production  are  found  to 
be  fixed.  Labour  alone  is  measured  by  wages,  capital 
alone  is  measured  by  net  profits;  and  the  average 
amount  of  wages  on  the  one  side,  and  the  average 
amount  of  net  profits  on  the  other,  are  two  at  least 
of  the  constituents  which  make  up  the  total  cost  of 
production,  gross  profits,  or  price,  so  far  as  these 
depend  on  difiiculty  of  production. 


ITI. 

28.  A  distinction  must  now  be  mentioned  which 
has  caused  much  confusion  from  not  being  clearly 
gi'asped  and  kept  firmly  in  mind,  that  between  the 
amount  and  rate  of  values.  When  a  commodity  or 
a  service  is  exchanged  for  others,  amount  is  ex- 
changed for  amount,  and  there  is  here  no  question  of 
rate.  But  when  an  amount  is  divided  into  two  or 
more  portions,  each  portion,  which  is  itself  an  amount, 
bears  a  certain  proportion  to  the  other  or  others,  and 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PKACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


010 
oio 


Book  1 1. 
Ch.  IV. 


8  95. 


to  the  whole  amount  divided.  This  proportion  is 
the  rate.  Thus  when  gross  profits  are  divided  into 
wages  and  net  profits,  each  portion  has  a  rate  both  as  staticai'iogic 
against  the  whole  and  as  against  the  other  portion.  °  ^^^  ^"^ " 
If  the  whole  amount  increases  or  diminishes,  the 
amount  of  each  portion  may  increase  or  diminish 
without  any  change  in  their  rates,  and  similarly  the 
rates  may  change  without  any  change  in  the  whole 
amount.  So  it  is  also  with  interest  for  money,  and 
with  rent  of  land  or  hire  of  goods.  The  amount  paid 
as  interest,  rent,  or  hire,  is  usually  expressed  by  the 
proportion  it  bears  to  the  amount  lent  and  borrowed; 
and  this  proportion  is  expressed  by  considering  the 
amount  as  divided  into  quantities  of  100,  and  ex- 
pressing the  amount  paid  as  so  much  per  cent.  So 
it  is  also  with  prices.  These  are  already  rates,  por- 
tions of  the  whole  mass  of  commodities  and  services 
balanced  against  other  portions.  The  price  of  any 
commodity  is  its  value  in  other  commodities  indif- 
ferently ;  if  it  rises,  there  must  be  a  fall  somewhere 
among  them;  if  it  falls,  a  rise  somewhere.  A  gene- 
ral rise  of  values,  or  of  prices  (abstracting  from  the 
commodity,  money,)  is  an  impossibility,  for  it  would 
be  a  general  change  in  rates,  at  the  same  time  that 
all  rates  remained  unchanged.  Prices  therefore,  as 
the  term  is  usually  taken,  are  the  same  thing  as  rates, 
whether  rates  of  wages,  of  profits,  of  rent,  hire,  or 
interest.  They  are  amounts  paid  for  other  amounts, 
both  being  portions  of  the  same  total  amount,  the 
commodities  and  services  in  the  world  at  large.  And 
it  is  the  increase  of  this  total  amount  of  the  world's 
wealth  which  alone  can  enable  the  amounts  enjoyed 
by  different  classes  of  its  owners  to  increase  without 
alteration  in  their  rates,  that  is,  without  lessening 


314 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Oh,  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


the  amount  enjoyed  by  one  class  compared  to  an- 
other. 

29.  Let  us  now  follow  up  this  analysis,  and  use 
these  distinctions  in  applying  them  to  the  cases  where 
labour  and  capital  are  employed  together  in  produc- 
tion ;  whereby  it  will  be  seen  what  consequences  flow 
from  differences  in  the  relative  amounts  of  capital 
and  labour  employed,  and  from  differences  in  the 
kinds  of  capital  itself;  and  also  the  connection  be- 
tween the  natural  values  of  commodities,  labour,  and 
capital,  that  is,  natural  prices,  wages,  and  net  profits, 
and  their  market  values  will  be  more  clearly  seen. 
Production  in  every  instance  takes  place  by  the  em- 
ployment of  some  capital  with  some  labour ;  but  this 
capital  has  itself  been  produced  by  other  caj)ital  and 
other  labour,  and  this  other  capital  again  in  the  same 
way;  and  thus,  though  we  come  invariably  to  the 
same  elements  of  analysis,  we  come  upon  them  al- 
ways in  varying  proportions,  and  also,  as  will  be  seen, 
giving  rise  to  varying  values.  It  is  not  enough  to 
point  out  the  two  elements  in  value  of  commodities, 
we  must  also  point  out  the  effects  which  flow  from 
their  different  natures. 

30.  In  order  to  escape  as  far  as  possible  the  em- 
barrassment of  this  perpetual  implication  of  capital 
with  labour,  we  may  begin  by  supposing  a  case  in 
which  no  capital  is  employed  except  for  the  payment 
of  wages  ;  the  payment  of  wages  itself  cannot  be 
eliminated  without  reversing  the  h}^3othesis  of  a  di- 
vision between  capitalists  and  labourers.  Suppose, 
then,  that  labourers  are  employed  to  produce  a  ma- 
chine out  of  materials  which  mav  be  had  for  nothino;. 
Here  the  quantity  of  the  labour,  including  the  em- 
ployer's, gives  the  value  of  the  commodity  produced, 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  315 

the  machine ;  and  the  whole  difference  between  the      book  ii. 
wages  paid  and  the  value  of  the  machine  is  net  profits,         -^—  ' 
remuneration  for  advancing  the  wages,  and  manage-    statical  logic 
ment.     The  wages  only  have  to  be  replaced  out  of    "  ^^^  '^^^^' 
this  value,  which  is  gross  profits,  the  price  of  the 
machine  if  sold. 

31.  Suppose  now  that  the  instruments  and  ma- 
terials for  the  construction  of  the  machine  had  a 
value,  and  were  supplied  by  the  capitalist.  In  this 
case  their  value,  as  well  as  the  wages,  has  to  be 
replaced  out  of  gross  profits.  The  replacement  of 
consumed  capital  and  of  wages  is  all  which  can  be 
required  out  of  gross  profits  ;  whatever  remains  is 
net  profits.  We  have  then  to  distinguish  three  things 
in  the  natural  amount  of  gross  profits  or  price :  the 
replacement  of  wages,  the  replacement  of  consumed 
capital,  and  the  net  profits  ;  and  of  these  the  first 
depends  on  the  minimum  requirements  of  the  labour- 
ers, the  second  on  the  varying  or  market  values  of 
the  commodities  consumed,  the  third  on  the  mini- 
mum requirements  of  the  capitalists. 

32.  It  is  then  the  commodities  consumed  in  pro- 
duction which,  by  their  varying  or  market  prices, 
introduce  the  greatest  fluctuations  into  the  price  at 
which  the  supply  of  any  commodity  can  be  offered. 
The  minimum  requirements  for  wages  and  for  net 
profits  change  but  slowly,  and  the  natural  price  of 
the  commodity,  so  far  as  dependent  upon  them, 
would  change  but  slowly  also.  But  the  natural 
price  of  the  commodity  is  exposed  to  fluctuations, 
arising  in  its  supply,  from  changes  in  the  market 
price  of  the  commodities  consumed  as  capital  in  its 
production;  while  its  market  price  depends  on  these 
causes,  operating  on  the  supply,  compared  with  the 


316  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.  demand  for  it,  which  may  change  in  two  ways,  first, 
— —  '  from  changes  in  the  taste,  fashions,  or  purposes,  of 
Statical  logic  the  public ;  secondly,  from  the  changes  in  the  supply 
^  ^  ^  '  itself,  and  the  price  at  which  it  is  offered.  Thus 
the  market  price  of  any  commodity  consumed  as 
capital  is  an  element  in  the  natural  price  of  the 
commodities  produced  by  its  means,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  cause  of  fluctuations  in  its  market  price  about 
the  natural  price  so  fixed.  It  is  then  almost  im- 
possible to  estimate  how  much  in  the  market  price 
of  any  commodity  is  natural  price,  and  how  much 
is  due  to  fluctuations  about  it,  because  the  market 
price  of  one  commodity  is  an  element  in  the  natural 
price  of  another ;  all  we  can  say  is,  that  the  natural 
price  contains  at  least  two  elements  which  are  com- 
paratively stable,  namely,  the  minimum  requirements 
of  labourers  for  wages,  and  those  of  capitalists  for 
net  profits. 

23.  We  may  however  draw  a  further  distinction 
in  the  market  price  of  the  commodities  consumed  as 
capital;  distinguishing  between  permanent  variations 
in  that  price  and  temporary  variations  in  it,  inde- 
pendent of  their  amount.  The  amount  of  variation 
will  of  course  have  influence  upon  the  price  of  the 
commodity  produced,  but,  great  or  small,  it  is  clear 
that  it  may  aflect  the  j^rice  either  for  a  long  or  only 
for  a  short  time.  The  lowest  price  for  which  a  com- 
modity can  be  permanently  ofi'ered  is  perhaps  the 
best  expression  for  its  natural  price ;  and,  if  we  as- 
sume this  definition  of  it,  we  may  abstract  from  the 
temporary  variations  in  the  market  price  of  the  com- 
modities consumed  in  its  production,  as  having  no 
influence  upon  its  natural  price ;  only  those  varia- 
tions which  continue  permanently  at  a  point  once 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


317 


reached  are  thus  to  be  counted  as  elements  in  the 
natural  price  of  the  commodities  produced ;  and  avc 
shall  find  that  the  same  distinction  is  applicable  also 
to  fluctuations  in  wages  and  net  profits  (see  par.  40). 

34.  It  must  now  be  remarked  that  the  elements 
in  natural  price  are  all  elements  in  the  price  of  the 
supply,  independent  of  the  demand  ;  they  are  ele- 
ments in  the  price  at  which  the  supply  of  the  com- 
modity can  be  permanently  oftered.  And  since  the 
market  price  of  any  commodity  may  vary  either 
from  changes  arising  in  the  supply,  or  from  changes 
arising  in  the  demand,  it  will  be  well,  in  the  first 
place,  to  consider  changes  arising  in  the  supply  alone, 
abstractino-  from  those  arisins;  in  the  demand.  The 
distinction  between  these  changes  coincides  with  the 
distinction  between  changes  which  affect  the  natm-al 
price  and  changes  which  affect  the  market  price,  or 
between  changes  which  affect  the  price  at  which  the 
supply  can  be  permanently  offered  and  changes  which 
affect  the  price  which  is  actually  obtained. 

2$.  When  we  consider  the  price  at  which  the 
supply  of  any  commodity  can  be  offered,  and  the 
elements  which  contribute  to  fix  that  price,  abstract- 
ing from  the  demand  for  it,  we  find  that  these  ele- 
ments are  three,  the  wages,  the  price  of  the  com- 
modities consumed  as  capital,  the  net  profits.  Of 
these  the  price  of  the  commodities  consumed  as 
capital,  which  must  be  replaced  out  of  gross  profits, 
enters  directly  and  inevitably  into  the  price  at  which 
the  commodity  can  be  offered.  If  raw  cotton  has 
been  consumed  in  manufiicturino:  calico,  and  raw  cot- 
ton  rises  in  value,  a  larger  sum  than  that  for  which 
it  was  purchased  must  be  set  apart  from  gross  pro- 
fits in  order  to  replace  it,  and  a  smaller  sum   if  it 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§95. 
Sfaticiil  logic 
of  excliaiiKC. 


318 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


falls.  This  larger  sum  cannot  be  taken  from  wages 
or  from  net  profits,  because  it  would  cause  workmen 
to  leave  the  trade  in  the  first  case,  and  capitalists  in 
the  second ;  and  this  would  happen  only  in  case  a 
less  quantity  of  manufactured  cotton  was  demanded, 
a  supposition  which  is  now  abstracted  from.  The 
price  at  which  manufactured  cotton  is  offered  must 
therefore  rise;  and  this  rise  will  not  attract  more 
labourers  or  more  capitalists  into  the  trade,  because 
the  price  is  required  to  meet  an  expense  peculiar  to 
that  trade,  which  does  not  increase  either  wages  or 
net  profits. 

^6.  In  wages  two  cases  may  be  distinguished. 
If  the  rise  or  fall  of  the  sum  paid  as  wages  by  the 
capitalist  is  required  for  the  paj'ment  of  a  greater 
or  smaller  quantity  of  labour  than  before,  which  is  a 
change  affecting  the  particular  commodity  produced 
and  not  others,  then  the  sum  so  paid  regulates  gross 
profits  or  price  in  the  same  way,  and  for  the  same 
T'easons,  as  a  change  in  the  value  of  consumed  capital 
does.  These  two  cases  may  then,  from  this  point 
of  view,  be  classed  together.  If,  secondly,  the  re- 
quirements of  the  labourers  in  a  particular  trade  rise 
or  fall  from  a  temporary  scarcity  or  abundance  of 
labourers,  or  from  a  temporary  scarcity  or  abund- 
ance of  capitalists  engaging  in  it,  or  from  a  change 
in  the  requirements  of  the  labourers  in  that  particu- 
lar trade  alone,  which  is  a  change  in  the  value  of 
labour  in  that  trade,  this  may  either  affect  the  price 
at  which  the  commodity  can  be  offered,  or  it  may 
affect  the  amount  of  net  profits,  in  the  one  case 
attracting  in  the  other  driving  capitalists  from  the 
trade.  If  we  assumed  that  net  profits  were  unaf- 
fected, the  change  in  wages  would  necessarily  affect 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


319 


the  price ;  but,  since  tlie  price  could  only  be  affected       c°f  1 "' 
by  means  of  a  corresponding  change  arising  in  the         — 
demand,    and    we    are    now   abstractinsr   from   such    statical  logic 

'  ^  "  _  of  exchange. 

changes,  the  other  alternative  only  remains,  namely, 
that  a  change  in  wages  is  compensated  by  a  change 
in  net  profits.  An  increase  or  decrease  in  the  quan- 
tity of  labour  affects  price,  an  increase  or  decrease 
in  the  value  of  labour  affects  net  profits,  which  is 
Ricardo's  law. 

37.  To  turn  now  to  the  third  element,  net  pro- 
fits, some  of  the  remarks  about  which  have  been 
already  anticipated.  A  rise  or  fall  in  net  profits  in 
a  particular  trade,  not  owing  to  a  rise  or  fall  in  the 
price  of  the  commodity  from  a  change  in  the  demand 
for  it,  cannot  affect  the  price  at  which  the  commodity 
is  offered ;  because  competition  prevents  the  capitalist 
from  raising  the  price  in  consequence  of  a  demand 
on  his  part  for  larger  profits ;  the  rise  of  price  may 
be  the  cause  but  not  the  effect  of  such  a  rise  in  net 
profits.  Every  such  rise  in  net  profits  must  there- 
fore be  at  the  expense  of  wages. 

38.  Taking  the  three  elements  in  turn,  the  re- 
sults are,  that  the  permanent  recjuirements  of  capital- 
ists for  net  profits  enter  into  the  price  at  which  a 
commodity  can  be  offered,  but  not  the  fluctuations 
in  these  requirements,  which  in  all  cases  are  com- 
pensated out  of  wages ;  secondly,  that  the  permanent 
requirements  of  workmen  for  wages  enter  into  the 
price,  but  the  fluctuations  in  them,  affecting  the 
market  value  of  labour  from  time  to  time,  are  com- 
pensated out  of  net  profits  ;  and  thirdly,  that  the 
market  price  of  the  commodities  consumed  as  capital 
enter  into  the  price  in  all  cases,  and  are  never  com- 
pensated out  of  either  wages  or  net  profits.      But 


320 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


since  it  is  only  the  price  at  which  a  commodity  can 
be  permanently  offered  which  constitutes  its  natural 
price,  it  is  only  those  changes  which  are  permanent, 
among  the  changes  enumerated  as  entering  into  price, 
which  can  be  held  to  enter  into  or  determine  its  per- 
manent or  natural  price.  That  is  to  sa}'^,  a  tempo- 
rary change  in  the  value  of  commodities  consumed 
as  capital  will  change  the  market  price  but  not  the 
natural  price  of  the  commodity  produced,  but  a  per- 
manent change  in  their  value  will  affect  the  natural 
price ;  and  a  temporary  fluctuation  in  wages  in  a  par- 
ticular trade,  though,  if  a  rise,  it  may  be  paid  out  of 
a  price  increased  in  consequence  of  an  increasing  de- 
mand, and  may  therefore  fall  on  price  and  not  upon 
net  profits,  is  no  element  in  the  natural  price  of  the 
commodity  produced.  And  net  profits  are  in  a  simi- 
lar position  to  wages. 

39.  But  let  us  now  reverse  the  process  of  enquiry, 
and,  leaving  the  analysis  of  the  price  at  which  a  com- 
modity can  be  offered,  begin  with  the  demand  for 
that  commodity,  with  its  market  price  as  subject  to 
chan":es  orio-inatino;  in  the  demand  for  it.  In  other 
words,  let  us  suppose  the  demand  for  some  commo- 
dities to  be  altered,  as  it  will  almost  certainly  be  if 
the  supply  can  only  be  offered  at  an  altered  price, 
which  is  one  source  of  change.  Chano;'es  in  taste 
and  fashion,  or  new  purposes  prevalent  for  a  time, 
such  as  war,  are  causes  operating  on  demand,  inde- 
pendent, as  to  origin,  of  the  price  at  which  the  supply 
can  be  offered.  But  from  whatever  cause  the  change 
in  demand  arises,  it  affects  the  market  price.  An 
increased  or  diminished  demand  will  operate  to  raise 
or  lower  the  market  price  of  the  particular  commo- 
dities in  question.     If  it  lowers  them,  a  smaller  sum 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


321 


will  have  to  be  divided  between  wages  and  net  pro- 
fits, assuming  replacement  of  capital  consumed  to 
require  the  same  sum  as  before,  that  is,  the  commo- 
dities so  consumed  to  be  unaltered  in  price.  But 
this  fall  in  wages,  or  net  profits,  or  both,  cannot  go 
beyond  the  minimum  of  their  natural  amount,  with- 
out causing  production  to  cease;  and  at  that  point 
the  supply  will  begin  to  be  diminished.  So  on  the 
other  hand,  if  the  demand  raises  prices,  a  larger  sum 
will  have  to  be  divided  between  wages  and  net  pro- 
fits, thus  raising  their  amount;  this  larger  sum  com- 
ing out  of  the  market  price  of  the  commodities,  and 
eventually  calling  forth  an  increased  supply  of  them. 
40.  The  great  struggle  between  labourers  and 
capitalists  consists  primarily  in  the  constant  pressure, 
one  against  the  other,  of  the  permanent  requirements 
of  wages  and  net  profits  in  dividing  between  them 
the  gross  profits  or  price  of  the  produce.  But  se- 
condarily there  is  superinduced  upon  this  another 
conflict  for  division  of  the  gross  profits  as  aflected 
by  fluctuations  in  the  market  price  arising  from 
changes  in  demand.  But  since  there  is  no  clear  line 
between  temporary  and  permanent  changes,  either 
in  price  of  commodities,  or  in  wages,  or  in  net  pro- 
fits, but  a  change  which  appears  at  first  likely  to  be 
only  temporary  may  turn  out  to  be  permanent,  and 
vice  versa,  all  changes  which  raise  wages  are,  as  a 
rule,  resisted  by  capitalists,  all  which  lower  them  by 
workmen.  Habit  is  that  which  makes  a  require- 
ment, either  of  the  capitalist  for  net  profits,  or  of 
the  labourer  for  wages,  which  at  first  may  have 
arisen  out  of  a  temporary  rise  in  gross  profits,  di- 
vided between  the  two,  assume  a  character  of  per- 
manence, and  enter  into  the  minimum  amount  for 

VOL.  II.  Y 


Book  11. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


322  LOGIC  or  the  practical  sciences. 

Book  il      which  Cither  will  consent  to  give  his  labour  or  his 
— '       caijital.     And  a  steady  increase  in  culture  and  re- 
Statical  logic    fincmcnt  on  the  part  of  the  labouring  classes  is  a 
'^ '    cause  constantly  at  work  to  make  enlarged  require- 
ments on  their  part  become  habitually  necessary  and 
permanent,   or   to   make,   in  other  words,   a  higher 
amount  of  wages  for  the  same  amount  of  labour  be- 
come fixed  as  the  natural  value  of  labour. 

41.  Both  net  profits  and  wages  are  remuneration 
for  services  not  for  commodities ;  wages  wholly,  and 
net  profits  in  that  part  of  them  which  is  distinguished 
from  interest,  a  distinction  to  be  drawn  farther  on 
(see  §  96.  87)  ;  and  in  this  they  are  together  dis- 
tinguished from  the  commodities  consumed  in  pro- 
duction. But  the  cost  of  production,  in  all  its  three 
branches,  depends  on  human  desires  and  the  strength 
of  human  volitions,  the  latter  of  which  may  be  in- 
creased indefinitely  by  combination  and  organisation 
among  those  whose  mterests  are  similar.  Causes  of 
this  as  well  as  of  a  j)hysical  kind  contribute  to  the 
result,  the  prices  at  which  commodities  can  be  ofi^ered. 
How  erroneous  then  is  the  language  of  those  who 
speak  as  if  exchanges  were  governed  by  laws  as  "  in- 
exorable" as  those  of  inanimate  nature,  m  their  rela- 
tion to  the  persons  whom  they  govern,  and  hold  out 
"  Supply  and  Demand"  like  a  Medusa's  head  to  turn 
into  stone  those  volitions  of  which  it  is  itself  nothino; 
but  the  brief  collective  exj)ression.  The  laws  are 
known  only  so  far  as  the  volitions  which  they  ex- 
press are  classed  and  estimated ;  the  laws  of  wages, 
for  instance,  being  unknown  until  the  strength  of 
the  volitions  to  combine  and  insist  on  terms,  among 
masters  and  among  workmen,  has  been  first  taken 
into  account.     The  root  of  this  error,  over  and  above 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


323 


the  natural  tendency  to  make  entities  of  abstractions, 
seems  to  lie  in  treating  political  economy,  a  science 
of  human  practice,  as  if  it  were  a  science  of  physical 
and  inanimate  phenomena,  the  opposite  error  to  that, 
argued  against  above,  of  treating  it  as  if  it  were 
exclusively  concerned  with  human  practice,  without 
being  conditioned  by  physical  laws. 

42.  The  higher  the  natural  value  of  labour,  and 
of  that  kind  of  it  which  is  remunerated  by  net  profits, 
or  of  either  of  them,  in  any  country,  the  higher  pro 
tanto  will  be  the  natural  price,  or  the  price  at  which 
can  be  permanently  offered  those  commodities  in 
producing  which  it  competes  with  other  countries. 
Unless  it  can  apply  greater  skill,  or  procure  its  com- 
modities consumed  as  capital  cheaper,  the  country 
where  wages  and  net  profits  are  permanently  the 
highest  will  not  be  able  to  produce  those  commodi- 
ties, in  competition  with  other  countries  where  they 
are  lower.  The  commodities  consumed  as  capital 
may  however  be  rendered  cheaper  by  improvements 
in  manufacture  and  economy  in  working  them.  In- 
telligence-and  skill  are  therefore  an  influence  counter- 
balancing the  operation  of  a  continued  rise  in  the 
natural  value  of  labour;  and  this  is  no  doubt  the 
only  mode  in  which  that  rise  can  be  counteracted, 
as  it  is  the  only  one  in  which  a  friend  of  the  true 
interests  of  mankind  can  wish  that  it  should  be.  The 
increase  of  the  natural  and  permanent  remuneration 
for  labour  enables  the  labourer  to  rise  to  greater  cul- 
ture and  refinement,  leaves  his  mental  powers  greater 
scope  for  activity  and  development,  and  thus  not  only 
raises  his  moral  condition,  but  also  provides  a  fund 
of  mental  power  which  is  certain,  in  a  great  number 
of  cases  at  least,  to  be  applied  to  that  which  most 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


324 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


interests  him,  the  work  upon  which  he  is  engaged, 
and  to  bear  fruit  in  more  intelligent  work  or  inven- 
tion of  superior  processes.  The  attempt,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  keep  labour  from  rising  to  higher  natural 
and  permanent  values  must  be  unsuccessful  in  the 
long  run,  for  it  is  fighting  against  the  inherent  tend- 
ency of  nature  to  better  its  condition;  while,  if  it 
succeeded  for  a  time,  its  success  would  be  purchased 
by  the  loss  of  the  increased  intelligence  and  mental 
power,  which  are  the  only  secure  basis  not  only  of 
national  greatness  but  also  of  national  wealth. 

43.  The  same  analysis  as  that  hitherto  applied  is 
aj)plicable  also  to  the  commodities  employed  as  capital 
in  every  stage  of  production,  to  the  machinery,  build- 
ings, and  raw  materials,  as  well  as  to  the  commodities 
produced  by  their  means.  These  are  commodities 
when  purchased  by  the  capitalist  to  be  employed  as 
capital,  and  have  their  value  determined  by  the 
same  elements,  and  in  the  same  way,  as  the  value 
of  the  commodity  which  he  will  produce;  that  is, 
their  value  in  each  case  may  be  distinguished  into 
natural  and  market  value,  the  one  affected  by  the 
permanent  or  natural  value  of  labour  and  amount  of 
net  profits,  and  by  the  market  value  of  the  capital 
consumed,  when  this  market  value  is  permanently 
at  the  same  amount ;  the  other  affected,  not  by  any 
fluctuations  in  value  of  labour  and  amount  of  net 
profits,  but  by  temporary  changes  in  the  market  value 
of  the  capital  consumed,  and  by  the  demand  for  the 
commodity  itself,  the  supply  of  which  is  thus  affected. 
And  in  the  last  stage  of  all,  where  no  commodities 
having  value  are  consumed  as  capital,  which  is  the 
rudest  state  of  production,  the  value  of  the  com- 
modity j^roduced  is  determined  by  the  two  elements 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  325 

only,  value  of  labour  and  amount  of  net  profits  ;  which  Book  ii. 
is  the  stasfe  which  was  assumed  as  the  startin";  point  -^  ' 
of  the  enquiry  in  par.  30,  statical  logic 

44.  The  main  outlines  of  the  analysis  being  now 
complete,  it  will  be  well  to  cast  a  glance  back  and 
endeavour  to  draw  some  general  conclusions,  as  well 
as  to  fill  up  the  picture  with  some  further  distinc- 
tions. The  three  elements  of  production  have  been 
distinguished  as  capital,  or  commodities  consumed 
or  employed  in  new  production;  skilled  labour  of 
management  accompanied  by  risk,  remunerated  by 
net  profits ;  and  rude  or  less  skilled  labour,  remuner- 
ated by  wages.  The  price  of  the  commodities  pro- 
duced has  been  shown  to  depend  on  causes  operating 
through  these  three  elements  of  production,  in  con- 
junction with  other  causes  operating  through  the 
demand  for  the  commodities  produced.  Let  us  ex- 
amine each  of  these  elements  in  conjunction  with 
changes  in  the  demand;  and  first  with  respect  to 
the  capital,  or  commodities  employed  in  production. 

45.  The  first  circumstance  to  be  considered  is  the 
following.  All  capital,  it  has  been  shown,  is  expended 
in  the  payment  of  labour;  and  we  may  consider  the 
difficulty  of  production  as  expressed  either  by  the 
capital  expended,  which  must  be  remunerated  by 
profits,  or  by  the  labour  expended,  which  must  be 
remunerated  by  wages.  Adopting  the  former  of 
these  expressions,  a  new  distinction  in  capital  must 
be  drawn.  Capital  is  either  fixed  or  circulating. 
Fixed  capital  consists  of  those  commodities  which 
are  not  entirely  consumed  in  the  production  of  new 
commodities,  and  the  profits  of  which  therefore  are 
not  entirely  paid  by  the  price  of  those  commodities, 
but  in  part  by  the  successively  produced  commodi- 


326  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      tics  in  which  they  are  employed.     Circulating  capital 
—         consists  in  those  commodities  which  are  entirely  con- 

§95.  ,  ,  ^       , 

Statical  logic    sumcd  ill  the  new  production,  and  the  profits  of  which 

of  exchange.  .  .  ,  . 

must  therefore  be  entirely  paid  by  their  price.  Wages 
and  raw  materials  are  a  part  of  circulating  capital ; 
machinery,  implements,  buildings,  land,  are  a  part  of 
fixed. 

46.  Since  the  entire  profits  of  fixed  capital  have 
not  to  be  paid  out  of  the  first  returns  to  production, 
the  price  of  the  commodities  so  produced  will  be 
lower  than  the  price^  of  commodities  produced  by  an 
equal  amount  of  circulating  capital,  the  entire  profits 
of  Avhich  must  be  paid  out  of  it.  And,  in  proportion 
as  the  capital  employed  is  fixed  capital  and  not  cir- 
culating, the  price  of  the  commodities  will  be  lower, 
as  compared  to  those  produced  by  an  equal  amount 
of  wholly  circulating  capital.  If  50  labourers  are  em- 
ployed at  £50  per  man  to  produce  cloth,  the  price 
of  the  cloth  will  be  equal  to  the  wages  of  50  labour- 
ers, .£2500,  and  net  profits,  say  at  £10  per  cent. 
£250;  together,  £2750.  The  capital  is  returned  to- 
gether with  net  profits.  But  if  a  permanent  machine, 
which  produces  an  equal  amount  of  cloth,  and  costs 
the  same  sum  as  the  labour  of  50  men,  that  is,  £2500, 
is  employed  in  producing  the  cloth,  then  the  price  of 
the  cloth  will  be  only  £250,  since  no  replacement  of 
capital  will  be  necessary,  but  the  capital  continues 
to  exist  in  the  machine  itself,  the  value  of  which, 
£2500,  may  be  realised  by  its  sale.  The  replacement 
of  consumed  capital  is  all  that  has  to  be  deducted 
from  price,  or  gross  profits,  before  satisfying  net 
profits;  and  it  matters  not  whether  the  capital  is 
consumed  in  paying  wages  or  in  replacing  consumed 
portions  of  instruments  or  materials. 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


327 


47.  But  there  is  no  kind  of  material  capital  so 
durable  as  to  require  no  replacement  or  repair.  In 
proportion  as  the  repairs  required  are  considerable, 
in  proportion  as  total  consumption  is  approached,  as 
in  the  case  of  raw  cotton  consumed  in  making  calico, 
in  that  proportion  will  the  price  of  the  commodities 
produced  by  employment  of  fixed  capital  approach  the 
price  of  commodities  produced  by  an  equal  amount 
of  circulating,  whether  consisting  in  wages  of  labour 
or  purchase  of  commodities.  In  all  cases  alike,  the 
prices  of  the  commodities  produced  will  be  equal  to 
the  wages,  net  profits,  and  replacement  of  capital; 
the  only  difference  now  pointed  out  consisting  in 
this,  that  in  different  kinds  of  commodities  the  requi- 
site replacement  varies  in  the  time  over  which  it  is 
spread. 

48.  From  this  we  may  conclude  that  the  larger 
the  proportion  of  circulating  to  fixed  capital  employed 
in  any  production,  the  greater  will  be  the  influence 
exerted  on  the  price  at  which  the  commodity  pro- 
duced can  be  permanently  offered  by  the  market  value 
of  the  commodities  consumed  as  capital  and  by  the 
natural  or  permanent  rate  of  wages,  compared  to  that 
exerted  by  the  natural  or  permanent  rate  of  net  pro- 
fits ;  and  conversely.  The  greater  influence  of  the 
rate  of  net  profits,  in  the  converse  case,  depends  on 
time.  The  longer  the  time  elapsing  between  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  capital  and  the  sale  of  the  produce, 
the  greater  must  be  the  return  in  net  profits.  If  I 
spend  £1000  in  one  year  on  the  construction  of  a 
machine,  and  only  at  the  end  of  the  next  year  bring 
commodities  produced  by  it  to  market,  and  net  pro- 
fits are  at  £10  per  cent.,  the  net  profits  must  be 
reckoned,  not  on  £1000,  but  on  £1100,  the    sum 


Book  U. 
Cir.  IV. 


5!  95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


of  exchange, 


328  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  XL  which  is  composed  of  the  accumulated  net  profits  of 
^  *  the  first  year  added  to  the  capital.  In  other  words, 
Statical  logic  a  rlse  in  the  rate  of  net  profits  adds  to  the  amount 
of  capital  which  requires  replacement,  and  therefore 
to  the  price  necessary  to  support  the  replacement  and 
the  net  profits  on  the  whole.  A  fall  in  the  rate  of  net 
profits  lowers  the  required  replacement,  and  there- 
fore price,  by  the  same  rule. 

49.  Under  the  foregoing  distinction  between  fixed 
and  circulating  capital  we  have  seen  some  kinds  of 
capital  and  labour  classed  together,  and  opposed,  in 
their  efi'ects  upon  the  price  at  which  the  produce  can 
be  oiFered,  to  the  labour  and  risk  which  is  remuner- 
ated by  net  profits.  Under  the  following  distinc- 
tion we  shall  see  the  two  kinds  of  labour  classed 
together,  and  opposed  to  commodities  distinguished 
into  the  two  classes  of  those  consumed  in  further 
production  and  those  consumed  unproductively ;  and 
this  distinction  is  one  of  far  greater  social  import- 
ance. Without  changes  in  demand,  and  consequently 
in  price,  wages  and  net  profits,  it  has  been  seen  (parr. 
36-38),  will  vary  inversely  if  at  all,  what  one  loses 
the  other  will  gain,  supposing  the  third  element  of 
production,  capital,  unaltered.  But  there  is  always 
a  certain  number  of  commodities  the  price  of  which 
admits  of  being  raised,  if  only  producers  are  aware 
of  the  opportunity  ;  and  these  commodities  give  a 
foothold  for  a  rise  in  wages  and  net  profits  simul- 
taneously. Employers  and  labourers  may  then  be 
regarded  as  always  on  the  watch  to  raise  prices, 
wherever  this  can  be  done  without  reducing  the 
quantity  of  produce  demanded.  Consumers  on  the 
other  hand  are  always  on  the  watch  to  obtain  the 
commodities  which  they  consume  as  cheaply  as  pos- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  329 

sible.  Now  the  price  of  commodities  consumed  in  bookii. 
further  production  has  been  ah^eady  shown  to  come  -—  * 
out  of  the  gross  profits  of  that  production  ;  it  is  in  statfcuriofdc 
the  long  run,  that  is,  supposing  the  production  to  be  °  "^^"^  '^"^'^* 
kept  up,  replaced  out  of  those  profits,  whether  it  is 
high  or  low  (par.  ^^).  If  productive  consumers,  as 
a  body,  pay  more  for  the  commodities  they  consume 
in  production,  they  will,  as  a  body,  receive  more  for 
the  commodities  which  they  produce.  It  is  out  of 
the  prices  paid  for  commodities  unproductively  con- 
sumed that  the  remuneration  ultimately  comes  for 
their  production  in  all  its  branches,  and  at  all  its 
stages.  The  demand  of  the  consumer  so  far  as  he 
consumes  unproductively  is  the  reservoir  out  of  which 
all  increase  of  price  is  ultimately  supplied.  In  other 
words,  the  remuneration  for  present  labour  of  all 
kinds  comes  out  of  the  accumulated  results  of  past 
labour,  now  in  the  hands  of  unproductive  consumers, 
or,  more  accurately,  of  consumers  so  far  as  their  con- 
sumption is  unproductive.  A  rise  in  that  remunera- 
tion can  only  be  met  by  a  rise  somewhere  or  other  in 
the  aggregate  prices  which  unproductive  consumers, 
holders  of  previously  acquired  wealth,  are  willing  to 
pay  for  certain  commodities.  The  commodities  pro- 
ductively consumed  being  abstracted  from,  as  having 
their  price,  whether  high  or  low,  provided  for  in  the 
manner  above  described,  the  demands  of  present  la- 
bourers, for  remuneration  of  present  labour,  are  left 
face  to  face  with  the  means  or  wealth  of  unproduc- 
tive consumers,  consisting  in  accumulations  of  past 
labour. 

50.  This  distinction,  between  labour  skilled  and 
unskilled  on  the  one  side  and  commodities  on  the 
other,  is  a  very  prominent  one  in  a  new  school  of 


330 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§  95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


economists,  and  already  we  may  see  that  it  lies  at 
the  basis  of  the  great  economical  and  social  changes 
which  are  in  progress.  "The  labourer,"  says  Mr. 
Harrison,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  No.  xiii.  p.  50, 
"  has  not  got  a  commodity  to  sell,  because  what  he 
seeks  to  do  is  not  to  exchange  products,  but  to  com- 
bine to  produce."  The  former  view  of  economists 
was,  that  labour  was  a  commodity  bought  and  sold 
in  the  labour  market,  the  price  of  which  was  de- 
termined by  the  amount  of  circulating  capital,  the 
*'  wages  fund,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  number  of 
labourers  on  the  other;  a  theory  which  was  a  corol- 
lary of  the  doctrine  of  supply  and  demand  in  its  old 
or  untenable  form  (see  par.  15).  It  was  assumed 
that  the  wage  fund  was,  at  any  given  time,  a  fixed 
amount,  all  of  which  would  be,  and  more  than  which 
could  not  be,  expended  in  the  employment  of  labour- 
ers. This  fund  constituted  the  demand  for  labour, 
the  number  of  labourers  constituted  the  supply ;  and 
the  rate  of  wages  depended  on  the  proportion  which 
which  these  two  quantities,  the  supply  and  the  de- 
mand, bore  to  each  other.  Two  sources  of  variation, 
however,  were  here  left  out  of  the  account ;  first, 
that  the  expected  amount  of  gross  profits  determined 
the  amount  which  an  employer  would  be  wilHng  and 
able,  by  borrowing  if  necessary,  to  throw  into  his 
business;  second,  that,  the  less  the  portion  of  these 
gross  profits,  when  realised,  which  Avent  to  replace 
the  wages  paid  to  labourers,  the  larger  would  be  the 
share  of  them  remaining  as  net  profits,  and  vice  versa, 
so  that,  if  the  labourers  were  content  with  lower 
wages,  the  employer  would  spend  as  revenue  what 
otherwise  would  have  been  spent  as  wages.  It  was 
true  that,  at  any  given  time,  the  sum  actually  spent  in 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEJ^CES.  331 

wao:es  was  a  fixed  amount,  but  it  was  not  true  that      book  ir. 
it  was  fixed  before  being  spent  or  agreed  to  be  spent;         ^ 
the  agreement  between  masters  and  men  was  the    staticaiWc 

n  .  1  n        1    •      /  1       •  X  ^^  exchange. 

very  thmg  that  nxed  it  (see  remarks  ni  par.  41);  so 
that  the  wage  fund  could  not,  without  logical  error, 
be  called  the  fund  "  destined"  to  the  payment  of 
wao^es.  See  Mr.  Lono;e's  able  Refutation  of  the  Wao^e- 
Fund  Theory,  published  in  1866.  The  wage  fund 
theory  is  thus  an  instance  of  the  fallacy  of  the  cart 
before  the  horse,  precisely  similar  to  the  logical  blun- 
der pointed  out  in  §  79,  which  defines  the  motive  of 
conduct  as  the  motive  which  contains  the  greatest 
pleasure,  whereas  it  is  only  by  its  being  the  motive 
of  conduct  that  we  know  which  or  what  pleasure  is 
the  greatest,  and  must  consequently  reverse  the  order 
of  definition. 

5 1 .  According  to  the  former  view  of  economists, 
then,  an  employer  bought  labour  as  a  commodity, 
and,  using  it  as  he  used  fuel,  iron,  or  horses,  com- 
peted with  other  employers  by  endeavouring  to  pro- 
duce more  cheaply  and  abundantly.  So  long  as  the 
labourers  were  unable  to  combine,  and  employers 
could  deal  with  them  man  by  man,  this  mode  of  in- 
dustry and  the  theory  which  reflected  it  held  their 
own.  But  with  combination  of  labourers  organised 
as  it  now  is,  and  still  more  as  it  inevitably  will  be, 
it  becomes  impossible  to  treat  labour  as  a  mere  com- 
modity, and  its  true  character  as  an  ultimate  agent 
of  production  comes  to  light.  The  unlimited  compe- 
tition of  employers  against  each  other  is  finished,  by 
the  necessity  they  will  be  under  of  supporting  each 
other  against  the  dictation  of  the  labourers ;  a  result 
which  has  been  ably  indicated  b}''  Mr.  Thornton  in 
his  work  On  Labour,  Book  iii.  Chap.  iv. 


332  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II,  52.  But  this  result  will  not  be  produced  without 

—        a  further  result  following,  one  also  pointed  out  by 

Statical  logic    Mr.    Thomtou ;    labourers   and   em])loyers   "svill  not 

of  exchange,  .  it  'ii  i* 

stand  organised  as  two  bodies  without  also,  and  m 
proportion  as  their  internal  organisation  advances,  or- 
ganising themselves  also  in  such  a  way  as  to  "  com- 
bine to  produce"  for  their  common  advantage,  in 
other  words,  to  effect  the  much  longed  for  "  organi- 
sation of  industry"  as  a  whole.  The  two  classes  of 
labourers,  employers  and  employed,  will  therefore 
place  as  high  a  value  as  they  can  on  their  commo- 
dity, present  labour,  estimated  in  the  only  other  kind 
of  exchangeable  wealth,  namely,  commodities  which 
embody  the  results  of  past  labour.  In  other  words,  we 
come  back  to  the  distinction  with  which  we  started, 
that  between  commodities  which  may  or  may  not  be 
employed  as  capital  on  the  one  side,  labour,  suj)er- 
intendence,  and  risk,  on  the  other.  We  may  already 
see  the  germs  of  this  combination  in  the  boards  of 
arbitration  between  masters  and  men,  which  would 
have  no  loo:ical  standino;-o;round  were  it  not  in  the 
interests  of  increased  and  improved  production  com- 
mon to  both  parties,  as  well  as  in  the  various  suc- 
cessful attempts  to  establish  cooperative  societies  and 
partnership  of  labourers  in  profits.  The  terms  of 
combination  can  only  be  settled  by  considering  the 
common  end  which  both  parties  have  in  view;  so 
much  however  may  perhaps  be  said  beforehand,  that 
these  terms  will  include  a  comparatively  stable  rate 
of  wages,  not  liable  to  the  fluctuations  of  the  goods 
market,  as  well  as  higher  average  rates  than  at  pre- 
sent. Wages  will  be  calculated  permanently  on  the 
basis  of  the  average  gross  profits  of  a  trade,  and  the 
temporary  fluctuations  in  these  gross  profits,  whether 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


333 


large  or  small,  will  be  thrown  upon  the  capitalist's 
residuum  or  net  profits,  whether  the  capital  is  owned 
by  one,  or  by  many,  or  by  the  labourers  themselves, 
who  would  thus  bear  a  double  character. 

^;^.  It  may  appear  at  first  sight  that  a  contradic- 
tion is  involved  in  saying  that  an  increase  in  value 
of  labour  means  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the  value 
of  commodities,  since  the  remuneration  of  the  labour 
of  production  consists  only  in  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duce when  sold ;  and,  if  this  falls,  the  value  of  the 
labour  must,  it  would  seem,  fall  along  with,  it;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  we  assume  that  labour  and  its 
products  really  rise  in  value,  this  seems  to  contradict 
the  well  established  law,  that  no  general  rise  or  fall 
of  values,  and  no  general  rise  or  fall  of  prices  (sup- 
posing no  change  in  money),  are  possible;  since,  it 
may  be  thought,  a  general  rise  in  labour,  that  is, 
in  all  industries,  would  produce,  if  it  could  take 
place,  a  general  rise  in  values,  that  is,  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  all  industries,  which,  unless  merely  nominal, 
or  only  in  the  money  they  are  reckoned  in,  is  an 
impossibility.  Both  the  apparent  contradictions,  how- 
ever, are  dissolved,  the  rise  in  labour  is  shown  to  be 
real,  and  also  not  to  involve  a  general  rise  in  values, 
by  drawing  the  distinction  between  commodities 
used  in  productive  and  commodities  used  in  final  or 
unproductive  consumption,  and  by  attending  to  the 
coincidence  of  this  distinction  with  another,  which 
will  be  drawn  more  fully  farther  on  (par.  79),  be- 
tween the  part  of  total  income  which  is  spent  as  re- 
venue and  that  part  of  it  which  is  spent  as  capital.  It 
is  commodities  finally  or  unproductively  consumed 
which  are  both  purchased  by  revenue  and  also,  by 
this  exchange,  replace  the  commodities  consumed  in 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  loyic 
of  exchange. 


334  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      producing  them,   and  pay  the  wages  of  labour,   at 

-^  '       every  stage  of  their  production.      If  the  wages  of 

Statical  logic    labour  generally  rise,  these  commodities  of  final  con- 

of  exchange.  .  •^^       •  i  i  •  Tj^- 

sumption  will  rise  also,  that  is,  more  commodities 
must  be  given  for  them,  and  larger  amounts  of  re- 
venue A\T.ll  be  required  to  command  the  same  amount 
of  them  as  before.  The  consumers  of  these  com- 
modities, and  every  man  is  a  consumer  of  them  to 
some  extent,  will  pay  more  for  them  in  other  com- 
modities which  they  already  hold  (and  the  holder 
of  money  is  really  a  holder  of  commodities).  And 
to  whom  do  they  pay  it  ?  to  the  series  of  producers ; 
and  for  what  purpose  ?  to  be  employed  partly  in 
unproductive  but  chiefly  in  productive  consumption. 
But  it  was  shown,  in  par.  ;^^,  that  the  value  of 
commodities  consumed  in  production  enters  into  the 
price  of  the  product,  whatever  that  value  may  be; 
if  this  value  falls,  the  price  of  the  product  falls  pro 
tanto  ;  if  it  rises,  the  price  pro  tanto  rises.  The 
increase  of  value  therefore  in  commodities,  assumed 
to  be  caused  by  a  general  rise  in  the  value  of  labour, 
need  not  be  supposed  to  cause  a  general  rise  in  the 
value  of  commodities,  but  only  in  the  value  of  com- 
modities of  final  consumption,  purchased  by  revenue ; 
these  and  these  alone  will  rise  in  value ;  more  must 
be  given  by  ultimate  or  unproductive  consumers  to 
those  who  expend  their  labour  in  producing  them, 
in  remuneration  not  for  the  commodities  they  have 
consumed  but  for  the  labour  they  have  bestowed, 
the  higher  value  of  the  commodities  used  in  pro- 
ductive consumption  being  paid  in  the  first  instance 
by  the  productive  consumer,  and  ultimately  restored 
to  him  by  the  price  of  the  finally  consumed  com- 
modity purchased  by  revenue.      The    change   thus 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


335 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§95. 


effected  is  a  change  in  the  distribution  of  values 
between  two  classes  of  persons,  or  more  accurately 
between  persons  in  two  characters,  that  of  labourer    statfcariosic 

,      ,  „        .  of  exchange. 

or  productive  consumer,  and  that  oi  enjoyer  or  un- 
productive consumer;  the  commodities  which  are 
consumed  in  production  are  replaced  by  the  value 
of  the  commodities  produced,  and  remain  unaffected 
by  the  change  in  the  value  of  labour.  The  rise  in 
value  of  commodities  productively  consumed  is  a 
nominal  or  rather  a  compensated  rise;  but  the  la- 
bourers are  benefited,  without  any  such  compensa- 
tion, at  the  expense  of  those  who  hold  commodities 
alone  without  labouring,  for  a  larger  amount  of 
these  commodities  must  now  be  given  for  the  same 
amount  of  labour  as  before.  And  the  general  re- 
sult of  this  tendency  to  a  rise  in  the  value  of  labour, 
as  distinguished  from  that  of  commodities,  will  no 
doubt  be  to  draw  the  owners  of  larger  and  larger 
realised  fortunes  into  industry,  where  they  may 
obtain  the  rewards  of  labour  as  well  as  the  remu- 
neration for  the  use  of  commodities  employed  as 
capital ;  inasmuch  as  it  tends  to  lessen  the  value 
of  fixed  or  nominally  equal  amounts  of  previously 
accumulated  commodities  or  realised  fortune  ;  thus 
contributing  to  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  in- 
dustrial life.  And  here  we  have  the  answer  to  a 
question  which  has  no  doubt  already  suggested  it- 
self, namely.  Whence  comes  the  value  to  furnish 
the  supposed  general  rise  in  labour?  It  comes  from 
the  additional  labour  of  those  who  will  now  begin 
to  earn  profits,  where  before  they  earned  only  in- 
terest, the  number  of  purely  unproductive  con- 
sumers being  lessened,  and  that  of  consumers  who 
are    productive    as  well   as    unproductive  being  in- 


of  exchange. 


336  LOGIC  or  the  practical  sciences. 

Book  XL      creased.     The  labour  will  be  attractive  because  it  is 

Ch.  IV. 

—         remunerative. 
Statical  logic  r^.  Tliis  result  may  be  expressed  as  a  rise  in 

the  natural  value  of  labour,  in  both  its  kinds,  as 
measured  in  or  purchased  by  commodities  previously 
produced.  These  commodities  fall  in  value;  but  it 
is  only  one  part  of  them  in  which  the  fall  is  real  or 
uncompensated,  namely,  that  part  which  is  consumed 
unproductively  or  as  revenue.  In  the  other  part, 
the  commodities  which  are  consumed  as  capital  or 
productively,  the  fall  is  compensated  by  the  value  of 
their  produce,  ultimately  consumed  unproductively. 
The  kind  of  commodities  which  must  necessarily  fall 
in  value  if  all  other  commodities  and  services,  or  la- 
bour, rise  in  value,  so  as  to  escape  the  contradiction 
involved  in  a  '  general  rise  of  values,'  has  been  thus 
pointed  out,  namely,  the  results  of  past  labour,  as 
well  as  the  mode  of  its  separation  from  the  rest,  as 
a  different  class  of  commodities.  The  division  which 
each  producer  or  receiver  of  income  makes  between 
what  he  consumes  unproductively  and  what  he  con- 
sumes productively  is  the  division  between  the  two 
classes  of  commodities,  one  of  which  falls  in  value 
while  the  other  remains  unaffected. 

S^.  To  test  this  conclusion  let  us  suj^pose  a  gene- 
ral rise  in  the  natural  value  of  labour  to  have  taken 
place,  although  of  course  it  can  only  be  a  gradual 
and  piecemeal  change  in  actual  practice,  a  change 
always  in  progress  and  never  complete.  Let  us  take 
two  articles  of  final  consumption  as  representatives 
of  all.  A  hat  which  exchanged  for  a  pair  of  shoes, 
before  the  rise  in  the  natural  value  of  labour,  mil 
exchange  for  the  same  after  it;  but  both  hat  and 
shoes  will  exchange  for  a  larger  money  price  than 


of  exchange. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PR.\CTICAL  SCIENCES.  337 

before,  that  is,  will  require  a  laro-er  amount  of  that       ^'(>^^  u- 

'  '  ^  ^    ,  ^  Ch.  I V . 

command  over  commodities  generally,  conferred  by  ^^r^ 
monev,  to  be  ffiven  in  exchange  for  them.  This,  I  statical  logic 
am  aware,  Avill  be  regarded  as  equivalent  to  saying 
that  the  hat  and  the  shoes,  now  standing  for  all  com- 
modities, have  not  risen  in  real  but  only  in  nominal 
value,  or  money  price;  for  it  will  be  argued,  if  the 
hat  will  not  command  more  commodities  than  before, 
as  it  will  not  if  it  only  commands  the  shoes,  it  can- 
not have  risen  in  real  value.  This  conclusion,  how- 
ever, is  only  drawn  by  overlooking  the  distinction 
between  revenue  and  capital,  and  between  the  re- 
sults of  past  and  those  of  present  labour. 

^6.  The  question  then  is,  how  the  distinction  is 
drawn  between  the  results  of  past  and  those  of  pre- 
sent labour.  And  here  it  will  be  seen  in  what  way 
money  as  a  means  of  exchange,  substituted  for  barter, 
is  a  condition  enabling  this  distinction  to  become 
practically  operative,  not  by  means  of  any  change 
arising  in  the  quantity  or  value  of  money  itself- — 
change  of  a  kind  which  is  here  entirely  abstracted 
from  —  but  by  enabling  us  to  measure,  and  distin- 
guish between,  kinds  of  commodities  which  are  other- 
wise inextricably  intermixed.  The  part  of  income 
which  a  man  spends  as  revenue  and  that  which  he 
spends  as  capital  are  distinguished  by  him  only  as 
money  amounts;  now,  if  all  money  prices  rise,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  money  amount  which  is  spent  as 
revenue  commands  less  in  commodities  or  services 
than  before,  while  one  which  is  spent  as  capital  com- 
mands the  same  as  before, — which  it  has  been  main- 
tained may  be  the  case  by  means  of  the  compensation 
in  the  raised  price  of  the  produce, — then  it  is  possible 
for  this  general  rise  in  money  prices  to  be  in  one  part 

VOL.  II.  z 


338 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 
On.  IV. 


§95. 

Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


real,  in  the  other  part  nominal,  without  any  differ- 
ence between  the  amounts  which  commodities  com- 
mand in  commodities. 

57.  In  money  a  new  commodity  is  introduced, 
whereby  other  commodities  are  divisible  into  amounts 
different  in  kind  from  the  amounts  into  which  they 
were  divisible  before.  So  to  speak,  they  were  before 
divisible  mechanically,  they  are  now  divisible  chemi- 
cally as  well.  All  commodities  as  soon  as  sold  and 
exchanged  for  money  become,  as  money  in  the  hands 
of  the  seller,  or  as  an  entry  to  his  credit  in  his 
banker's  books,  representatives  of  past  instead  of,  as 
before,  representatives  of  present  labour.  The  act  of 
exchange  is  the  moment  of  their  separation.  And 
this  is  the  meaning  of  the  expression  at  the  begin- 
ning of  par.  54,  "  commodities  previously  produced." 
These  commodities  exist  henceforth  in  the  shape  of 
money  amounts.  A  man  brings  a  hat  to  market,  re- 
presenting his  present,  as  yet  unremunerated,  labour ; 
he  sells  it,  and  the  money  represents  his  remunerated, 
or  past,  labour.  That  money  amount  is  a  command 
over  commodities  generally  ;  it  is,  as  Mr.  Macleod 
most  forcibly  explains  (Theory  and  Practice  of  Bank- 
ing, Chap.  i.  §  9,  and  elsewhere) — Debt.  Now,  if 
the  commodities,  or  any  j^art  of  them,  rise  in  value, 
the  command  over  them  of  a  stated  money  amount 
falls  in  value.  It  is  a  certain  amount  of  command 
over  commodities  generally,  a  certain  amount  of  debt 
owing  to  him,  that  the  seller  of  the  hat  has  received 
in  exchange  for  his  commodity ;  and  it  is  a  part  of 
the  same  kind  of  command,  or  debt,  that  the  receiver 
of  an  income  distinguishes  into  that  which  he  will 
spend  as  revenue,  in  purchasing  commodities  of  final 
consumption,  and  that  which  he  will  spend  as  capital, 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


339 


in  producing  commodities  to  employ  in   production 


again. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§95. 


c8.  Now  all  spenders  of  revenue  si^end  a  part  of    statical  logic 
this  general  command  or  debt ;  and  this  general  com- 
mand or  debt  is  the  new  commodity,  introduced  by 
money,  which  falls  in  value  as  all  the  previously  ex- 
isting kinds  of  commodities  rise.     Although,  there- 
fore,  hats    and    shoes   do   not    rise   as    compared   to 
each  other,  they  do  rise  as  compared  to  the  existing 
amount  of  command  for  them,  or  debt  owing  by  them 
on  exhibition  of  money,  or  to  that  amount  of  the 
results  of  past  labour  which  is  or  may  be  set  apart 
for  purchasing  articles  of  final  consumption.      If  then 
possessors  of  income  wish  to  enjoy  as  much  of  these 
commodities  as  before,  they  must  set  apart  a  larger 
amount  than  before  out  of  their  income,  as  revenue, 
thereby  decreasing  what  they  would  otherwise   set 
apart  as  capital.     All  the  commodities  of  final  con- 
sumption are  in  the  hands  of  productive  consumers, 
all  the  command  over  them,  or  debt  owed  by  them, 
in  those   of  unproductive   consumers.     And  on  the 
one  hand,  it  is  of  real  importance  to  the  unproduc- 
tive  consumer  whether  his   stated   amounts   of  this 
command  command  much  or  little,  because  his  com- 
mand has   cost  him  labour,  and  is  labour  in  its  re- 
munerated result ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  of  equal 
importance  to  the  productive  consumer,  because  his 
commodities  have  cost  him  labour  too,  and  are  the 
means  of  its  remuneration. 

59.  The  command  or  debt,  money,  is  the  market 
for  commodities  and  services.  Certain  portions  of 
these  commodities,  while  in  the  hands  of  their  pro- 
ducers, are  virtually  the  property  of  the  commanders, 
at  least  they  have  been  produced  with  no  other  pur- 


340 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Oh,  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


pose  than  to  become  so;  and  the  same  also  is  true 
of  any  portion  of  the  command  itself,  namel}^,  that 
it  is  virtually  the  property  of  the  producers,  and  for 
the  same  reason.  More  commodities  and  services 
are  produced  and  kej^t  at  demand,  in  proportion  as 
a  larger  demand  is  anticipated,  in  order  to  meet  it. 
Hats  are  not  produced  in  order  to  be  exchanged  for 
shoes,  nor  guineas  for  guineas.  Each  kind,  hats  and 
shoes  on  one  side,  and  guineas  on  the  other,  have 
been  produced  to  exchange  for  the  other  kind ;  each 
represents  real  labour;  the  hats  and  shoes  labour 
which  has  not,  the  guineas  labour  which  has,  had  its 
remuneration  fixed.  That  a  hat  will  only  command 
a  pair  of  shoes,  a  pair  of  shoes  only  a  hat,  after  as 
before  the  supposed  rise  in  value,  is  no  more  incon- 
sistent with  that  rise  than  that  a  guinea  will  com- 
mand no  more  and  no  less  than  a  guinea.  The  un- 
productive consumer,  unless  himself  also  a  producer, 
has  no  means  of  counterbalancing  a  general  rise  of 
prices;  he  has  no  labour  or  commodities  to  sell  in 
his  turn.  His  command  over  commodities  consists 
solely  in  the  amount  of  money  for  which  he  parted 
with  his  own  commodities  at  some  previous  time. 
If  then  commodities  generally  rise  in  money  price, 
and  there  is  no  change  arising  in  the  money  itself, 
the  rise  will  be  a  real  thouoh  o-radual  transference  of 
real  as  well  as  nominal  value  from  the  unproductive 
consumers  to  the  labourers,  whether  employers  or 
employed. 


IV. 


60.  We  come  now  to  a  distinction  in  capital  which 
opens  a  new  field  of  enquiry,  the  distinction  between 
capital   owned   and   capital   borrowed.      Capital  bor- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


341 


rowed  is  that  kind  which  has  now  to  be  examined. 
It  may  be  of  two  kinds,  commodities  themselves  to 
be  employed  in  production,  and  money  to  be  em- 
ployed in  the  purchase  of  such  commodities.  The 
return  or  price  paid  for  the  use  of  money  lent  and 
borrowed  is  Interest,  and  this  is  a  subject  which 
cannot  be  examined  here,  but  falls  under  the  second 
branch  of  political  economy.  (See  §  96.  8i  et  seqq.). 
Commodities  borrowed  and  lent  may  be  conveniently 
divided  by  the  foregoing  distinction  between  fixed 
and  circulating  capital ;  and  the  price  for  fixed  capital 
will  then  be  properly  called  Rent,  that  for  circulating 
Hire.  See  Mr.  Macleod's  Elements  of  Pol.  Econ. 
Chap.  ii.  Sect.  ii.  As  Mr.  Macleod  points  out,  rent 
and  hire  are  high  in  amount,  in  proportion  as  the 
capital  for  which  they  are  paid  is  perishable  and 
likely  to  be  restored  in  deteriorated  condition  from 
use. 

6 1.  Interest,  rent,  and  hire,  of  borrowed  capital 
must  be  paid  for  out  of  the  price  of  the  commodities 
produced,  just  as  wages  and  net  profits  are.  It  is 
clear  that  interest  can  never  bear  so  large  a  propor- 
tion to  capital  as  net  profits  do;  for  these  include 
the  remuneration  for  risk  and  labour  of  management, 
and,  if  any  one  could  obtain  the  same  returns  for 
lending  money  at  interest  as  by  employing  it  him- 
self, he  would  never  be  at  the  trouble  of  engaging 
in  trade.  The  owned  capital  which  a  man  employs 
in  his  business  he  usually  charges  with,  or  considers 
liable  for,  interest  to  himself,  at  a  certain  rate,  as  if 
it  were  borrowed  money  on  which  it  was  paid  to  a 
lender ;  and  by  this  means  ascertains  for  himself  the 
pure  profits  of  his  business,  the  pure  remuneration 
for  his  skill   and  good  fortune  in  its  management. 


iJooK  n. 

Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchan=re. 


342 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


Rent  and  hire  on  the  contrary  are  not  estimated  by 
a  per  centage,  but  are  gross  amounts  paid  for  the 
use  of  commodities  in  the  mass. 

62.  The  case  of  rent  seems  to  be  the  only  one 
that  calls  for  examination.  All  fixed  capital  when 
borrowed  is  paid  for  by  rent;  but  there  is  one  kind 
of  rent  which  has  obtained  a  special  title  to  the  name, 
the  rent  paid  for  the  use  of  the  inseparable  qualities 
of  land  used  in  agriculture.  There  is  hardly  any 
case  in  which  the  rent  paid  consists  solely  of  the 
remuneration  for  these  qualities;  in  almost  all  it  is 
combined  mth  rent  of  buildings,  fences,  and  so  on ; 
so  that  what  is  called  the  Theory  of  Rent  must  in 
the  outset  be  restricted  to  this  special  component  of 
the  whole  sum  paid  under  that  name.  With  this 
restriction,  the  theory  of  rent  follows  from  Ricardo's 
theory  of  natural  value;  and  I  shall  hold  myself  dis- 
pensed from  doing  more  than  here  stating  it,  having 
already  offered  what  reasons  I  was  able  in  support 
of  that  theor}'-. 

6^.  The  rent  paid  by  a  farmer  for  the  use  of 
the  inseparable  qualities  of  that  land  which  pro- 
duces either  more  abundant  crops  than  the  worst 
land  under  cultivation,  or  an  equal  abundance  with 
less  labour,  is  paid  out  of  the  price  of  the  crops,  but 
has  no  effect  in  raising  or  lowering  that  price;  and 
for  this  reason,  that  the  corn  grown  on  the  worst 
land,  or  on  the  better  land  with  a  greater  expendi- 
ture of  labour  and  capital  than  was  before  requisite 
to  produce  the  same  quantity,  fixes  the  price  of  all 
the  corn,  under  whatever  condition  gro^vn.  It  is 
evident  that  this  additional  expenditure  of  labour 
and  capital,  or  this  additional  cultivation  of  inferior 
land,  would  not  have  taken  place  had  there  not  been 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  348 

an  imperious  demand  for  a  greater  quantity  of  corn ;       Book  n. 
and  therefore  the  corn  produced  does  not  constitute         ^—  * 
a  supply  which  is  in  excess  of  the  demand.     This    staticaiiogic 
being  so,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  corn  grown  at    ^'  ^'^^  ^"^'^' 
less  expense,   or  under  more  favourable  conditions, 
should  bear  a  lower  price   than   that  grown  under 
conditions  less  favourable.     There  will  then  always 
be  a  surplus  in  the  gross  profits  on  the  corn  grown 
under  the   more  favourable   circumstances,  and  this 
surplus  is  rent.      "Corn,"  says  Ricardo,  "is  not  high 
because  a  rent  is  paid,  but  a  rent  is  paid  because 
corn  is  high;  and  it  has  been  justly  observed,  that 
no  reduction  would  take  place  in  the  price  of  corn, 
although  landlords  should  forego  the  whole  of  their 
rents."     Rent  in   short  is  a  distinct  kind   of  value, 
traceable  by  analysis  to  the  laws  of  production  from 
land,  and  exists  quite  independently  of  the  question 
what  class  of  men  are  or  become  its  owners. 

64.  Here  we  come  to  that  distinction  between 
commodities  which  was  mentioned  in  passing  in  par. 
7,  namely,  between  commodities  producible  in  equal 
additional  quantities  by  equal  increase  of  labour  and 
capital  expended  and  commodities  producible  only  in 
diminishing  quantities  by  equal  increase  of  expendi- 
ture. Agricultural  produce  belongs  to  the  latter  class, 
in  consequence  of  the  physical  laws  governing  pro- 
duction from  land ;  the  result  being  that,  while  land 
bears  a  rent,  rent  does  not  affect  price.  The  cir- 
cumstance too,  that  the  greater  part  of  necessaries 
consists  of  agricultural  produce,  equal  additions  to 
which  are  only  procured  by  constantly  increasing  ap- 
plications of  labour  and  capital,  has  the  effect,  in  a 
progressive  state  of  population,  of  raising  the  natural 
value  of  labour  in  all  employments,  that  is,  of  raising 


344 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


the  natural  rate  of  wages;  a  rise  which  will  only 
necessarily  be  compensated  by  a  fall  in  net  profits 
in  those  cases  where  prices  cannot  be  raised  upon 
the  consumer,  or  a  larger  demand  created  for  the 
produce  (par.  2^). 

65.  The  theory  of  rent  is  therefore  an  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  doctrine  already  insisted  on,  that  the 
physical  laws  of  production,  the  obstacles  which  na- 
ture sets  to  acquisition,  are  the  ultimate  determinants 
of  the  value  of  commodities  exchanged  between  man 
and  man.  The  action  of  man,  determined  by  the 
strength  and  kind  of  his  desires,  is  limited  by,  and 
has  to  conform  to,  the  physical  conditions  of  satis- 
fying them ;  and  in  whatever  commodity,  or  at 
whatever  point,  a  physical  difficulty  in  acquisition 
or  obstacle  to  satisfaction  occurs,  at  that  point  and 
in  that  commodity  an  exchange  value  is  created,  and 
political  economy  begins.  Supply  and  demand,  in- 
cludino-  the  modes  in  which  and  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  equated,  is  the  whole  of  political 
economy;  and  all  limitation  in  supply  comes  ulti- 
mately from  nature,  just  as  the  supply  and  just  as 
the  demand  themselves  do.  Every  limitation  of  sup- 
ply, however,  in  presence  of  a  demand,  is  the  creation 
of  an  exchange  value. 


V. 

66.  There  is  a  class  of  exchanges  founded  on  an 
empirical  distinction  in  actual  practice  so  important 
as  to  merit  a  separate  examination,  the  class  of  ex- 
chano-es  constitutino;  International  Trade.  The  con- 
elusions  hitherto  reached  are  of  universal  application, 
being  apphcable  to  all  mankind  generally,  taken  as  a 
whole,  and  to  every  nation  taken  as  a  separate  whole ; 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


345 


but  they  undergo  certain  modifications  in  consequence 
of  the  separation  of  different  climates  by  distance, 
and  of  different  nations  by  distance,  language,  laws, 
and  customs  of  life.  These  modifications  must  now 
be  taken  into  account;  and  in  doing  so  it  will  be 
well  to  distinguish,  at  the  outset,  two  aspects  of  the 
subject,  first,  the  exchanges  between  any  two  nations 
as  wholes,  in  which  the  exports  as  a  whole  are  the 
]:»rice  paid  for  the  imports  as  a  whole,  and  vice  versa ; 
and  secondly,  the  machinery  by  which  these  ex- 
changes are  effected,  that  is,  as  broken  up  into  single 
exportations  paid  for  in  money  to  the  individual  ex- 
porting the  goods,  and  single  importations  for  which 
the  importer  pays  in  like  manner.  The  first  way 
of  looking  at  the  matter  will  give  the  general  and 
abstract  treatment  of  the  case,  and  will  furnish  the 
characterisation  of  the  processes  described  in  the  se- 
cond way  of  looking  at  it,  which  in  their  turn  will 
furnish  the  analysis  and  verification  of  that  general 
characterisation. 

67.  And  first  under  the  first  aspect.  When  com- 
modities produced  in  one  country  are  exchanged  for 
commodities  produced  in  another,  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction is  still  the  minimum,  or  natural  value,  below 
which  the  market  price  cannot  permanently  fall.  But 
while  this  cost  of  production  consists  in  the  price  of 
the  commodities  consumed  as  capital,  in  the  price 
of  labour,  and  in  the  amount  of  net  profits,  in  the 
producing  country,  the  market  value  of  the  com- 
modity produced  consists,  not  in  the  commodities 
for  which  it  will  exchange  in  the  producing  country, 
but  in  those  for  which  it  will  exchange  in  the  foreign 
country  to  which  it  is  exported.  It  must  exchange 
for  such  an  amount  of  foreign  commodities  as,  when 


Took  TI. 
Cii.  IV. 


§  95- 
Statical  logic 
of  excliange. 


346 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


sold  by  the   original  producer  in  his   o^vn   country, 
will    give   him    at  least  an    equal  remuneration   to 
that  which  he  could  have  obtained  by  the  same  cost 
expended  in  producing  commodities  for  home   con- 
sumption.   And  the  same  rule  applies  to  the  foreign 
commodities  which  he  receives  in   exchange  for  his 
exports.    Their  value  consists  not  in  the  commodities 
which   they  could   command  at  home,  but  in  those 
which  they  can  command  abroad,  that  is,  in  the  com- 
modities which  will  be  exported  to  pay  for  them, 
and  which  when  received  must  sell  for  a  price  equal 
at  least  to   replacement   of  capital,   wages,   and  net 
profits,  a  price  which  might  not  ha\^  been  obtained 
if  the  commodities  originally  produced  had  been  sold 
at  home.     The  cost  of  production  depends  upon  the 
home  markets,  but  the  remuneration  for  producing 
depends,  first,  upon  the  foreign  markets  for  the  pro- 
duce, secondly,  upon  the  home  market  for  the  foreign 
commodities  imported  in  exchange.      The  eff'ect  of 
the  separation  of  countries  is  therefore  to  mterpose 
a  new  link  between   production   and   remuneration, 
namely,  the  foreign  commodity,  first  bought  by  and 
then  sold  for  home  products.     Two  markets  instead 
of  one  must  be  taken  into  the  account. 

68.  From  this  follows  this  singular  result  of  in- 
ternational trade,  that  a  connnodity  may  be  imported 
from  abroad  notwithstanding  that  it  might  be  pro- 
duced at  a  lower  cost  at  home  than  abroad.  (See 
Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.  Book  iii. 
Ch.  xviii.).  For  it  may  be  paid  for  by  commodities 
which  at  home  have  cost  less  in  producing  than  the 
commodity  itself  would  cost.  It  is  therefore  cheaper 
to  import  than  to  produce  it,  although  it  is  dearer 
to  produce  abroad  than  it  is  to  produce  at  home. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


347 


The  foreign  producer  obtains  commodities  which  are 
the  cheapest  to  us  to  produce,  ])aying  for  them  by 
commodities  which  cost  him  less  to  produce  than  the 
price  for  which,  in  his  markets,  the  commodities  im- 
ported from  us  are  sold.  The  condition  of  foreign 
trade  is,  not  that  the  commodities  imported  shall  be 
produced  at  a  lower  cost  in  the  exporting  than  in 
the  importing  country,  but  that  the  commodities  im- 
ported shall  sell  for  more  than  the  cost  of  production 
of  the  commodities  exported  in  return.  The  advan- 
tage or  disadvantage  of  foreign  export  trade,  at  any 
particular  time  and  place,  depends  upon  the  sum 
which  we  receive  for  our  exports  compared  to  the 
sum  which  we  have  spent  in  producing  them,  and 
not  compared  to  the  sum  which  we  pay  for  our  im- 
23orts;  while  the  advantage  or  disadvantage  of  a 
foreign  import  trade  depends,  not  upon  the  sum 
which  we  pay  for  our  imports  compared  to  the  sum 
which  we  receive  for  our  exports,  but  upon  the  sum 
which  we  pay  for  our  imports  compared  to  the  sum 
which  we  receive  for  the  productive  use  we  make  of 
them. 

69.  It  is  evident  therefore  that  eack  country  finds 
its  greatest  advantage  in  devoting  its  labour  and 
capital  exclusively  to  the  production  of  those  com- 
modities which  it  can  produce  the  most  cheaply 
compared  to  foreign  countries;  and  in  buying  with 
them  foreign  produce  of  all  descriptions  which  it  can 
produce  less  cheaply,  even  although  it  may  be  able 
to  produce  some  of  these  more  cheaply  than  foreign 
countries.  The  natural  conditions,  extraneous  to  po- 
litical economy,  such  as  soil,  climate,  neighbourhood, 
raw  produce,  government,  and  manners,  go  a  long 
way  toAvards  deciding  what  kinds  of  production  are 


Book  II. 
Ca.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


348 


LOGIC  or  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


the  cheapest,  and  therefore  the  most  advantageous, 
to  different  countries.  The  tendency  of  advancing 
industry  is  to  introduce  the  princij^le  of  division  of 
labour  into  international  transactions;  and  the  more 
complete  the  fusion  of  mankind  into  one  vast  family, 
by  breaking  down  the  artificial  barriers  of  diverse 
laws,  manners,  languages,  weights  and  measures, 
currencies,  and  so  on,  the  more  pronounced  will  this 
separation  of  industries  become,  depending  as  it  does 
on  the  natural  barriers  which  cannot  be  removed. 
But  there  must  always  remain  a  great  number  of 
productions  in  which  the  differences  of  cost  of  pro- 
duction, though  depending  on  such  irremovable  na- 
tural barriers,  are  too  small  to  effect  the  cessation 
of  their  production  in  one  place  and  its  removal  to 
another.  There  will  always  be  a  large  variety  of  in- 
dustries in  every  country,  in  which  no  interchange 
will  take  place,  notwithstanding  the  slight  difference 
of  advantage  in  favour  of  one  country  over  another ; 
such  differences  being  too  small  to  cover  the  cost  of 
carria2:e. 

70.  The  minimum  price  or  return  received  for 
an  exported  commodity  is  fixed,  it  has  been  seen, 
by  its  cost  of  production.  The  maximum  price  or 
return  for  it,  the  upper  limit  of  oscillation  in  its 
market  value,  is  fixed,  in  a  similar  manner,  by  the 
cost  of  production,  in  their  own  country,  of  the  com- 
modities imported  in  return  for  it.  The  considera- 
tion of  this  point  will  bring  us  to  the  question  of  the 
machinery,  the  particular  exchanges,  by  which  inter- 
national trade  is  effected,  which  is  the  second  aspect 
of  the  whole  subject. 

7 1 .  Country  A  exports  goods  to  country  B ;  their 
minimum  aggregate  price  must  be  sufficient  to  cover 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  349 

their  cost  of  production  in  A.  But  what  is  their  bookti. 
maximura  aggregate  price,  the  maximum  which  B  -—  ' 
can  afford  to  give  for  them?  It  must  consist  of  the  stadcaiiogic 
goods  which  B  can  export  and  sell  to  A,  at  prices  '  '  °  " 
sufficient  to  cover  their  cost  of  production.  These 
goods  are  the  price  paid  to  A  by  B  in  return  for  the 
goods  sent  to  B  by  A ;  and  the  highest  aggregate 
prices  for  which  they  sell  in  A  form  the  maximum 
aggregate  price  of  A's  exports;  just  as  the  highest 
aggregate  prices  for  which  A's  goods  sent  to  B  will 
sell  in  B  are  the  maximum  aggregate  price  of  B's 
exports.  The  lower,  therefore,  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion in  B,  the  greater  is  the  quantity  of  goods  it  can 
afford  to  export,  and  therefore  the  greater  are  its 
means  of  purchasing  from  A.  In  other  words,  the 
cost  of  production  in  B,  w^hich  fixes  the  minimum 
price  which  B  can  afford  to  receive  from  the  sale  of 
its  imports  from  A,  fixes  also  the  maximum  Cj[uantity 
of  goods  which  B  can  afford  to  send  to  A  in  return ; 
and  the  price  for  which  this  quantity  will  sell  in  A 
is  the  limit  above  which  the  price  received  by  A,  for 
goods  exported  to  B,  cannot  rise.  The  cost  of  pro- 
duction in  each  country  fixes  the  maximum  quantity 
of  o:oods  which  can  be  o-iven  for  the  commodities  im- 
ported  from  the  other;  and  the  money  price  which 
the}^  fetch,  when  sold  in  the  country  which  imports 
them,  is  the  purchase  money  of  the  commodities 
which  have  been  exported  in  return  for  them.  In 
other  words,  the  cost  of  production  in  the  exporting 
country  determines  the  quantity  of  goods  which  can 
be  profitably  exported,  the  markets  in  the  importing 
country  determine  the  price  of  those  goods  to  the 
importer. 

72.    Here  then  we  reach   a  disthiction  between 


350 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


quantity  and  price  of  goods  imported  and  exported 
which  carries  us  over  into  the  question  of  the  actual 
machinery  by  which  international  trade  is  effected. 
It  is  through  the  prices  received  for  exports  com- 
pared to  the  cost  of  production,  and  through  the 
prices  realised  by  sale  of  imports  compared  to  those 
given  for  the  imports,  as  separate  transactions,  that 
the  merchants  in  the  two  countries  know  what  trans- 
actions are  likely  to  be  advantageous  to  them;  the 
ao-orreo-ate  of  which  transactions  constitutes  the  inter- 
national  trade  which  has  been  characterised  as  a  pur- 
chase of  exports  by  imports  between  the  countries. 
Let  us  endeavour  to  connect  these  two  aspects  toge- 
ther. The  prices  oscillate,  between  the  limits  above 
described,  according  to  the  demand  of  each  country 
for  the  productions  of  the  other.  An  increasing  de- 
mand is  a  demand  for  a  greater  quantity  than  before ; 
the  price  rises  in  consequence.  How  is  this  price 
paid  ?  By  offering  goods  for  export  at  lower  prices, 
in  order  to  reach  a  larger  market,  and  obtain  a  greater 
sum  of  money.  The  country  which  demands  more 
raises  prices  on  itself;  it  has  to  export  more  in  quan- 
tity than  before,  and  therefore  to  lower  the  price  at 
which  its  exports  are  offered.  The  country  which 
demands  less  obtains,  therefore,  foreign  goods  at  a 
lower  price  and  in  greater  quantity.  The  demand 
of  consumers,  the  U  of  the  acquirers,  is  the  operative 
element  in  determining  market  values,  m  interna- 
tional trade,  between  the  limits,  either  way,  fixed  by 
cost  of  production;  and  this  overcomes  the  D,  the 
resistance  of  the  sellers,  at  the  point  where  the  cheap- 
ness of  the  goods,  which  the  buyer  offers  in  exchange, 
induces  him  to  take  a  quantity  sufficient  to  pay  for 
the  goods  now  demanded  by  the  buyer.     And  this 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  351 

is  the  difference  between  the  two  cases  of  interna-       bookIL 
tional  trade   and  trade   between   individuals;  in  the         — ' 
latter  case  the  acquirer  overcomes  1)  by  onermg  a    statical  logic 
laro-er  amount  of  goods  or  of  money  for  the  goods 
which  he  demands,  while  in  the  former  he  overcomes 
it  by  offering  to  sell  goods  at  a  cheaper  rate,  in  ex- 
pectation of  having  a  greater  quantity  of  them  de- 
manded in  consequence;  that  is,  he  offers  a  greater 
quantity,  not  directly,  but  indirectly  by  lowering  the 
price.     If  a  greater  quantity  is  not  demanded  in  con- 
sequence, then  he  either  diminishes  his  own  demand 
or  exports  in  return  some  commodity  which  brings 
him  in  no  profit. 

y^,.  We  may  now  pass  to  the  second  aspect  of 
the  subject,  the  actual  mechanism  of  the  trade,  adopt- 
ing the  trader's  point  of  view,  and  beginning  with 
the  chancres  which  arise  in  demand,  on  consideration 
of  market  prices  as  they  may  exist  at  any  one  time. 
Not  only  does  the  general  expression  '  the  country' 
mean,  not  an  individual  person,  but  the  producers 
and  traders  of  the  country,  but  also  each  of  these 
individuals  singly  does  not,  as  a  rule,  export  goods 
for  which  he  receives  payment  in  other  goods,  but 
he  exports  goods  for  which  he  receives  payment  in 
money,  by  bills  payable  or  discountable  in  his  own 
country,  as  single  and  separate  transactions,  or  he 
imports  goods  for  which  he  pays  in  a  similar  man- 
ner. Bills  are  drawn  against  goods  exported,  and 
bills  are  drawn  against  goods  imported,  which  bills 
are  exchanged  against  each  other;  thus  enabling  us 
to  characterise  the  transactions  as  exchanges  of  goods 
against  goods. 

74.  Now  it  is  the   state   of  prices  to  which  the 
producers  and  traders  of  a  country  look,  when  con- 


of  exchange. 


352  LOGIC  or  the  practical  sciences. 

Book  XL      siderino;  what  commodities  it  will  be   profitable   to 

Ch.  IV.  in  •  -nn  ^1 

— -  export  or  produce  lor  exportation.  W  hen  tne  prices 
statical  iogic  of  aiiv  kind  of  goods  abroad  are  sufficiently  high  to 
cover  the  cost  of  production  and  of  carriage,  they  are 
produced  and  exported ;  when  the  quantity  demanded 
is  greater,  the  j)rice  will  rise,  and  they  will  be  pro- 
duced and  exported  in  greater  quantity;  this  how- 
ever raises  the  price  of  them  at  home  as  well  as 
abroad,  for,  if  the  price  was  not  raised  at  home,  the 
merchant  who  purchased  them  of  the  producer  would 
alone  make  the  increased  profit,  by  purchasing  at  the 
former  low  price.  Producers  and  traders  keep  ex- 
porting all  goods  which  bear  a  price  abroad  sufficient 
to  cover  their  cost  of  production  and  carriage,  and 
those  goods  most  which  bear  the  highest  price  and 
are  most  in  demand.  Those  goods  alone  cease  to  be 
exported  the  price  of  which  falls  below  the  cost  of 
production  and  carriage.  Similarly  in  the  country 
traded  with  ;  its  producers  and  traders  keep  pro- 
ducing and  exporting  all  goods  which  bear  a  re- 
munerative price,  and  those  the  most  the  price  of 
which  is  highest,  from  their  being  most  in  demand. 
The  lower  limit  to  exportation  on  either  side  is  fixed 
by  cost  of  production  in  the  exporting  countries. 

75,  If  however  the  demand  for  goods  at  high 
prices  ceases  in  one  country  before  the  correspond- 
ing demand  ceases  in  the  other,  there  will  be  im- 
porters in  the  latter  country,  where  the  demand  still 
continues,  who  have  to  pay  for  the  goods  imported 
without  being  able  to  find  goods  to  export  at  re- 
munerative prices  ;  the  bills  which  are  drawn  on 
them  for  payment  of  the  goods  imported  will  be  of 
greater  amount  than  the  bills  which  they  can  draw, 
or  purchase   when   drawn,    upon    importers   in  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PliACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


358 


country  where  the  demand  has  ceased.  This  effect 
however  is  not  produced  until  the  traders  and  pro- 
ducers, in  the  country  where  the  demand  still  con- 
tinues, have  sought  to  follow  up  the  decreasing  de- 
mand in  the  other  country  by  offering  goods  at 
decreasing  prices,  down  to  the  lower  limit  of  cost 
of  production,  in  hope  of  reaching  a  demand  for  a 
greater  quantity  at  those  lowered  prices.  It  is  only 
when  this  limit  is  reached,  "without  a  greater  quantity 
being  demanded  in  consequence,  that  the  total  amount 
of  bills,  drawn  on  the  country  where  the  demand 
continues  high,  becomes  greater  than  the  total  amount 
of  bills  drawn  on  the  country  where  the  demand  has 
diminished. 

76.  When  this  is  the  case,  those  importers,  in  the 
country  where  the  demand  continues  high,  who  have 
to  meet  the  bills  drawn  on  them,  and  are  unable  to 
find  bills  on  the  other  country  to  pay  them  with, 
have  to  transmit  not  goods  but  bullion,  in  payment 
of  the  bills  drawn  on  them  for  the  goods  they  have 
imported.  Bullion  becomes  the  commodity  exported 
to  pay  for  import  of  goods.  But  bullion  is  a  com- 
modity on  the  export  of  which  the  trader  makes  no 
profit ;  which  is  evident  from  this,  that  if  the  pro- 
ducer or  trader  sent  goods  which  would  sell,  in  the 
other  countr}^,  for  the  amount  of  his  debt,  he  would 
obtain  the  difference  between  their  price  and  the 
expense  of  their  production,  that  is,  he  would  obtain 
the  net  profits;  but  when  he  sends  bullion  (unless 
bullion  itself  is  a  product  of  the  country)  there  is 
no  difference  between  the  value  of  the  thing  sent 
and  the  debt  which  it  pays.  The  transmission  of 
bullion  therefore  shows,  not  only  that  the  country 
to  which  it  is  sent  has  ceased  to  increase  its  demand 

VOL.  II.  AA 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


354 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  XL      for  the  Commodities  of  the  country  which  sends  it, 

Ch.  IV.  ''  1  •    1 

-—         but  also  that  the  maximum  price  of  imports,  which 
Statical  logic    thc  couiitrv  scudino;  bullion  instead  of  sending  ^oods 

of  exchange.  >'  "  •        i  />      i  • 

can  pay  with  a  profit  on  the  payment  itself,  that  is, 
on  its  exports,  has  been  reached ;  for  the  commodity 
now  exported  in  return  for  goods  is  a  commodity 
which  cannot  sell  for  more  in  the  country  to  which 
it  is  sent  than  it  costs  to  procure  it  in  the  country 
which  sends  it,  unless  it  is  a  product  of  that  country. 
In  other  words,  the  cost  of  production,  in  the  im- 
porting country,  of  the  commodity  exported  in  re- 
turn for  its  imports  fixes  the  maximum  of  price  at 
which  it  can  afford  to  import  without  having  recourse 
to  money  or  bullion  payments.  (See  farther  with 
reference  to  bullion,  §  96.  76). 

77.  The  transmission  of  bullion  in  payment  of 
an  international  balance  is  therefore  the  final  stage 
in  the  oscillation,  upwards  or  downwards,  of  market 
prices  between  any  two  nations,  and  indicates  a  state 
of  trade  which  will  normally  be  followed  by  a  dimin- 
ished demand  on  the  part  of  the  country  which  ex- 
ports the  bullion.  The  most  advantageous  state  of 
commerce  is  one  in  which  the  transmission  of  bulHon 
is  entirely  avoided,  because  in  such  a  state,  though 
the  two  countries  may  divide  the  advantage  unequally, 
according  to  the  demand  of  either  compared  with  the 
demand  of  the  other,  yet  there  are  no  exchanges  on 
which  net  profits  are  not  reaped  by  the  exporting 
country.  International  trade  is  therefore  most  ad- 
vantageous to  all  concerned  when  the  exchanges  are 
to  the  largest  amount,  without  the  limits  of  oscilla- 
tion in  market  prices  being  reached  in  either  direc- 
tion, and  consequently  without  any  transmission  of 
bullion. 


of  exchange. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  355 

78.  We  are  thus  brouo;ht  back  to  the  statement      bookil 

'  ,  .  .  Ch.  I V. 

made  in  par.  69  as  to  the  mode  of  judging  the  ad-  ^-^ 
vantage  or  disadvantage  in  exporting  and  importing,  statica^  lo^c 
The  export  of  goods  must  be  profitable  on  the  whole ; 
that  is  to  say,  it  must  at  least  repay  the  cost  of 
production  of  the  goods  exported;  for  otherwise  it 
would  soon  cease  to  be  carried  on.  Its  returns  may 
be  left  to  the  care  of  the  individual  traders,  for,  if 
they  find  their  profit  in  it,  it  is  clear  that  the  country 
must  do  so  too.  But  an  import  trade  which  is  not 
supported  or  balanced  by  an  export  trade  of  goods, 
but  which  has  to  pay  for  its  imports  by  the  export 
of  bullion,  will  be  profitable  no  doubt  to  the  indi- 
vidual traders,  for  the  same  reason  as  in  the  other 
case;  but  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  it  will 
also  enrich  the  country.  If  bullion  is  exported  to 
meet  imports  of  commodities  to  be  used  in  produc- 
tive consumption,  the  country  will  no  doubt  be  the 
richer  for  the  transaction,  notwithstanding  that  we 
make  no  profit  on  the  export  of  the  bullion  itself. 
But  if  the  imported  commodities  are  commodities  of 
final  or  unproductive  consumption,  not  being  neces- 
saries of  life  which  must  l^e  supplied  in  the  same 
quantity  from  some  source  or  other,  then  the  im- 
porters may  be  benefited  by  their  sale,  but  the 
country  not  enriched,  because  it  will  have  expended 
its  wealth  in  the  purchase  of  indulgences,  that  is, 
commodities  of  final  and  unnecessary  consumption. 
It  is  the  use  to  which  the  imports  are  put,  in  such 
a  case,  that  determines  whether  the  importation  is, 
economically  speaking,  advantageous  to  the  country. 
Both  limbs  of  international  trade  may  be  profitable 
in  the  case  of  imports  of  goods  met  by  exports  of 
goods ;  but  it  is  only  importation  that  can  be,  where 


356 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


the   corresponding  export  consists  not  of  goods  but 
of  bullion. 

VI. 

79.  In  order  to  complete  the  examination  of  the 
first  branch  of  political  economy  we  must  return  to 
the  general  point  of  view  from  which  we  departed  in 
considering  international  trade.  The  prices  or  values 
of  commodities  have  been  to  some  extent  analysed 
into  their  component  parts  or  elements.  A  distinc- 
tion of  prices  must  now  be  introduced,  founded  on 
the  different  purposes  for  which  they  are  paid,  or, 
in  other  words,  on  the  different  modes  of  consump- 
tion. Capital  has  already  been  opposed  to  labour, 
but  the  term  has  another  employment  in  which  it 
is  opposed  to  Revenue.  (See  par.  ^2)-  ^^^  ^^  ^^^^^ 
the  term  Income  to  signify  the  sum  which  may  be 
spent  either  as  capital  or  as  revenue,  or  partly  as 
both.  Revenue,  then,  is  that  part  of  income  which 
is  spent  in  unproductive  consumption,  capital  that 
spent  in  productive.  It  is  clear  that  this  division 
is  exhaustive  ;  all  the  wealth  in  the  world  must  be 
either  revenue  or  capital;  for  it  must  be  either  con- 
sumed or  hoarded,  and,  if  consumed,  then  either  pro- 
ductively or  unproductively,  and  if  hoarded,  this  is 
equivalent  to  unproductive  consumption  so  long  as 
the  hoarding  lasts. 

80.  The  only  motive  for  consuming  productively 
is  to  be  able  to  consume  unproductively  hereafter. 
Productive  consumption  is  labour,  unproductive  is 
enjoyment.  Consequently  unproductive  consumption 
is  the  reward  of  productive,  and  the  portion  of  wealth 
consumed  unproductively  is  that  which  purchases,  and 
is  purchased  by,  the  portion  produced  by  productive 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


357 


consumption.  Revenue  is  the  demand,  not  for  capi- 
tal, but  for  the  commodities  produced  by  consuming 
capital, 

8 1.  The  men  dividing  their  incomes  into  revenue 
and  capital  cannot  be  so  simply  divided  into  two 
classes.  There  are  not  two  classes,  one  of  productive 
and  not  unproductive  consumers,  the  other  of  un- 
productive and  not  productive.  There  might  indeed 
be  men  who  were  the  first,  namely,  such  unskilled 
manual  labourers  who  should  consume  no  more  than 
was  requisite  to  repair  the  waste  of  their  frames  and 
keep  themselves  in  good  working  order.  There  might 
be  men  who  were  the  last,  namely,  pure  spendthrifts 
and  pure  paupers.  But  between  these  two  classes 
lies  the  vast  bulk  of  mankind,  namely,  men  who 
spend  their  incomes  partly  productively  partly  un- 
productively,  partly  as  capital  partly  as  revenue. 

82.  The  industrialist  who  spends  capital  or  la- 
bour in  production  clearly  sets  apart  one  portion  of 
the  total  resulting  income  to  replace  his  consumed 
capital,  the  other  portion  to  consume  unproductively 
as  revenue,  in  buying  house,  food,  clothing,  and  luxu- 
ries. So  much  of  this  so-called  revenue  as  is  strictly 
necessary  to  maintain  him  in  health  of  body  and  mind 
may  be  reckoned  as  replacement  of  capital ;  since  it 
is  requisite  to  the  superintendence  of  his  capital,  or 
to  the  application  of  his  strength  in  labouring,  that 
he  should  be  able  to  work ;  but  this  portion  cannot 
be  actually  divided  from  the  whole  of  what  he  spends, 
or  from  that  portion  which  is  mere  luxury. 

83.  So  also  the  man  who  is  said  to  "live  on  his 
means"  sets  apart  one  portion  of  his  total  Having 
each  year  as  capital,  and  the  rest  as  revenue;  he 
lends  his  money,  goods,   or  land;  and  the  interest, 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§95! 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


358 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      rent,  or  hire,  is  that  portion  which  is  his  revenue. 

— —  '       His  money,  goods,  and  land,  are  employed  as  capital 

Statical  logic    In  reproductioii ;  the  interest,  hire,  and  rent,  are  con- 

of  exchange.  -■ 

sumed  as  revenue. 

84.  Thus  out  of  the  total  Having  or  Income  of 
each  year, — if  we  break  up  the  total  into  yearly 
periods  for  the  sake  of  convenience, — one  part,  capi- 
tal, is  set  apart  to  provide  the  total  income  of  next 
year;  and  all  income  arises  solely  from  capital  so 
employed.  In  looking  to  the  mode  in  which  revenue 
arises,  we  find  that  it  comes  solely  from  capital,  being 
a  part  of  income,  which  itself  has  no  other  source. 
Capital  productively  consumed  is  the  parent  of  the 
revenue  of  one  year,  and  of  the  capital  of  the  next ; 
the  caj^ital  of  that  next  year  the  parent  of  the  re- 
venue and  capital  of  the  year  following,  and  so  on. 

85.  The  gradual  increase  of  revenue  from  year 
to  year  comes  out  of  the  gradual  increase  of  capital ; 
and  the  capital  of  each  year  is  increased  by  saving 
out  of  income ;  that  is,  by  setting  apart  out  of  the 
total  income  a  larger  part  than  is  requisite  for  the 
mere  replacement  of  the  capital  producing  it,  a  saving 
which  can  only  be  made  by  leaving  a  smaller  sum, 
that  year,  than  would  otherwise  be  left  for  revenue ; 
smaller,  that  is,  than  it  would  have  been  but  for  the 
saving,  but  perhaps  not  smaller  than  the  revenue  of 
the  preceding  year,  since  the  capital  may  have  pro- 
duced a  larger  total  income.  The  larger  the  capital 
the  larger  the  income;  and  the  larger  the  mcome 
the  larger  may  be  both  or  either  of  the  two  parts  of 
it,  capital  for  next  year  and  revenue.  Revenue  can 
only  permanently  increase  by  permanent  additions 
being  made  to  capital;  the  two  increase  pari  passu; 
and  the  capital  is  the  parent  of  the  revenue. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


359 


86.  It  is  clear  therefore  that  capital  is  necessary 
to  revenue.  But  the  converse  also  is  equally  true, 
namely,  that  revenue  is  necessary  to  ca2:)ital,  by  being 
the  demand  for  its  products.  Now  in  what  sense  is 
revenue  the  demand  for  commodities  produced  by 
capital?  And  would  those  commodities  lose  their 
value  if  there  were  no  revenue  to  purchase  them 
with?  These  are  questions  Avhich  concern  the  most 
fundamental  principles  of  political  economy. 

87.  It  may  be  stated  in  the  first  j^lace  that  the 
term  unproductive  consumption,  the  expenditure  of 
revenue,  is  sometimes  used  in  a  sense  in  which  the 
consumption  is  not  wjiolly  unproductive.  The  money 
paid  for  the  luxuries  consumed  goes  to  swell  the 
total  income  of  several  productive  consumers,  to  re- 
place their  capital  as  well  as  to  furnish  their  revenue. 
That  is  to  say,  A.  B.  C.  produce  commodities  which 
X  consumes  unproductively ;  the  exchange  between 
the  two  parties  is  a  source  of  income  to  A.  B.  C.  and 
a  source  of  revenue  to  X.  But  the  income  of  A.  B.  C. 
is  partly  at  least  capital  employed  next  year.  It  is 
the  other  limb  of  the  exchange,  the  revenue  of  X, 
the  commodity  he  consumes,  which  is  consumed  un- 
productively. But  if  X  were  a  productive  consumer 
as  well  as  A.  B.  C,  if  the  commodity  he  purchased 
of  them  were  consumed  as  capital,  then  both  limbs 
of  the  exchange  would  be  employed  as  capital  pro- 
ductively ;  and  the  result  next  year  would  be  an  in- 
come increased  by  the  savings  of  X,  as  well  as  by 
those  of  A.  B.  C. 

88.  The  X  of  this  illustration  must  not  be  taken 
as  a  representative  of  the  class  who  "live  on  their 
means."  This  class  is  liable  to  be  confounded  with 
those  who   spend  revenue   and   consume  unproduc- 


BOOK  II. 

Ch.  IV. 


Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


260  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Bookh.  tively,  instead  of  spending  capital  and  consuming 
—  productively,  merely  because  the  way  in  which  their 
S'excianfi?  capital  is  usually  invested,  permanent  investment  in 
land,  stock,  or  shares,  gives  returns  in  the  shape  of 
rent  or  interest,  and  thus  their  whole  annual  ap- 
parent income  has  already,  when  it  comes  into  their 
hands  as  revenue,  been  diminished  by  subtraction, 
from  the  whole  real  income,  of  that  portion  set  apart 
as  capital  for  next  year.  Being  permanently  invested, 
the  capital  has  not  to  be  deducted  and  set  apart  by 
them  each  year ;  they  receive  only  the  revenue.  To 
the  extent  of  their  investments  this  class  is  a  class 
consuming  capital  productive^,  just  as  much  as  the 
classes  actively  engaged  in  industry.  Revenue,  how- 
ever separated  out  of  total  income  from  capital  for 
next  year,  is  revenue  in  the  strict  sense,  if  it  is  a 
portion  of  income  unproductively  consumed.  The 
rich  farmer,  ship-builder,  contractor,  manufacturer, 
merchant,  and  so  on,  spends  as  much  revenue  un- 
productively as  the  rich  landowner  or  fundholder. 
X  therefore  means  every  possessor  of  an  income, 
quatenus  a  spender  of  revenue. 

89.  But  now  as  to  revenue  being  the  demand  for 
products  of  capital ;  suppose  X  to  spend  no  revenue, 
but,  buymg  only  what  was  necessary  for  bare  sub- 
sistence and  health,  to  reduce  his  unproductive  ex- 
penditure to  a  minimum,  and  to  employ  his  total 
income  as  capital,  productively;  would  that  de- 
stroy, or  at  all  diminish,  the  demand  for  products  of 
capital  ?  Certainly  not.  The  kind  of  commodities 
demanded  would  be  changed;  only  such  would  be 
demanded,  and  consequently  in  the  long  run  pro- 
duced, as  could  be  employed  in  further  production. 
Jewellery,  for  instance,  might  not  be  produced,  but 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


361 


more  of  such  things  as  machinery  for  cotton-spinning      book  n. 
instead.     The  wealth  of  the  world  would   be   enor-         -^  * 

S  95. 

mously  increased  by  the  change;  because  both  sides    statkaiiogic 
of  the  exchange  spoken  of  in  par.  8  8  would  now  be    °  ^^'^  ^  ^^' 
employed  as  capital,  instead  of  only  one.     The  em- 
j)loyers  of  capital  would  make  their  owai  market,  X 
would  have  become  included  in  the  class  A.  B.  C, 
and  class  X  would  cease  to  exist. 

90.  But  if  X  were  to  cease  unproductive  expen- 
diture without  substituting  productive;  if  he  were  to 
hoard  or  annihilate  his  revenue,  not  transferring  it 
to  capital,  which  would  be  the  case  if  he  bought  no 
articles  of  luxury  at  all,  but  received  his  interest  or 
profits  and  then  threw  them  into  the  sea — (and  the 
sea  is  a  first-rate  place  for  hoards) — the  demand 
for  products  of  capital  would  be  greatly  diminished ; 
for  the  obvious  reason,  that  a  large  part  of  existing 
wealth  would  be  destroyed,  a  large  part  of  the  al- 
ready realised  products  of  capital.  In  this  case  both 
limbs  of  the  exchange  spoken  of  above  would  have 
become  unproductive. 

91.  We  have  then  three  cases  of  employment  of 
income : 

1.  where  it  is  consumed  unproductively  as  re- 

venue,   the    exchanges    having    one    limb 
unproductive,  the  other  productive ; 

2.  where  it  is  consumed  productively  as  capital, 

the  exchanges  having  both  limbs  produc- 
tive ; 

3.  where  it  is  destroyed,  the  exchanges  ceasing, 

Avhich  in  point  of  wealth  is  the  same  as  both 
limbs  being  unproductive. 

92.  It  is  not  therefore   an  unconditional  truth 


3G2 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


that  revenue  is  the  sole  ultimate  demand  for  the  pro- 
ducts of  capital;  there  might  be  a  demand  just  the 
same,  though  for  different  kinds  of  products,  if  that 
portion  of  income  usually  spent  as  revenue  were  to 
be  spent  as  capital.    And  in  this  case  enormous  addi- 
tions would  be  made  to  the  world's  wealth.     But  as 
things  are,  as  human  nature  is  actually  constituted, 
revenue  is  the  sole  ultimate  demand  for  these  pro- 
ducts ;  it  is  a  contingent  truth,  conditioned  on  a  fact 
in  human  nature,  which  is  this,  that  man  seeks  pre- 
sent enjoyment  to  a  certain  extent  and  not  beyond, 
the   precise    extent    being   measured,    in   matter   of 
wealth,  by  the  proportion   of  income  which  he  de- 
votes to  enjoyment  one  year,  compared  to  the  portion 
which  he  devotes  to  produce  income  for  next  year. 
It  is  a  case  falling  under  the  general  law  of  choice, 
that  the  comparative  strength  of  conflicting  motives, 
or  conflicting  pleasures,  can  only  be  known  by  the 
result,  that  is,  by  the  pleasure  which  becomes  the 
motive  of  the  choice  actually  made.     The  capital  set 
apart,  and  the  labour  of  employing  it,  are  the  means 
of  attaining  an  ultimate  end ;  they  are  therefore  me- 
diate or  subordinate  ends  only.     And  this  shows  the 
truth  of  the  doctrine  in  §  94.  4,  5,  that  political  eco- 
nomy cannot  be  defined  by,  or  founded  on,  the  smgle 
motive  of  acquiring  wealth,  even  allowing  that  this 
motive  should  be  taken  as  an  artificially  abstracted 
phenomenon,   for  the  purpose  of  examination;    but 
that  it  must  be  founded  on  all  the  actual  motives  of 
men,  their  desires  of  enjoyment  of  all  kinds,  so  far 
as  these  are   satisfiable  by  commodities  or   services 
capable  of  acquisition  by  exchange.     If  the  motive  of 
man  was  to  increase  his  own  wealth  and  the  world's, 
and  not  to  enjoy  by  spending  revenue,  then  the  only 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


363 


demand  for  the  products  of  capital  would  be  a  de-      book  ii. 

^  ^  .  Cii.  rv. 

mand  by  productive  consumers  as  such,      nut  smce         7^ 

the  reverse  is  the  truth,  since  the  sole  ultimate  mo-    statical  logic 

,  .  of  exchange. 

tive  of  man  is  to  spend  revenue,  and  not  to  increase 
his  wealth,  it  follows  that  the  sole  demand  which 
gives  value  to  the  products  of  capital  consists  ulti- 
mately or  originally  in  the  demand  of  unproductive 
consumers.  The  demand  for  products  to  employ 
again  productively  is  a  demand  derived  from  this 
ultimate  one,  as  a  demand  for  the  means  whereby  it 
may  be  satisfied. 

93.  In  other  words.  Trade  exchanges  depend  upon 
General  exchanges,  the  exchanges  between  dealers 
and  dealers  upon  those  between  dealers  and  con- 
sumers. And  the  amount  paid  by  dealers  to  dealers 
can  never  be  greater  than  that  paid  by  consumers 
to  dealers ;  for  the  funds  to  furnish  the  former  come 
out  of  the  funds  employed  in  the  latter.  Hence  Adam 
Smith,  in  Book  ii.  Chap.  ii.  says :  "  The  value  of  the 
goods  circulated  between  the  different  dealers  never 
can  exceed  the  value  of  those  circulated  between  the 
dealers  and  the  consumers;  whatever  is  bought  by 
the  dealers  being  ultimately  destined  to  be  sold  to 
the  consumers."  The  price  of  the  shoes  sold  to  con- 
sumers, for  instance,  paid  by  consumers  to  a  dealer, 
pays  not  only  that  dealer  for  his  capital  and  trouble, 
but  a  great  many  other  dealers  besides  for  theirs, 
the  tanner,  the  grazier,  the  threadmaker,  and  so  on; 
their  capital  and  trouble  being  paid  out  of  the  capital 
of  the  shoe  dealer,  and  he  retaining  for  himself  only 
the  profits  on  his  own  capital. 

94.  Revenue,  then,  is  the  market  for  commodities 
produced  by  capital,  and  these  lose  their  exchange 
value  if  no  market  can  be  found  for  them.     Just  as 


364 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


the  weapon  of  the   savage  loses  its  value-in-use  if 
there  remains  no  game  which  it  can  kill,   so  these 
commodities  lose  their  exchange  value  if  they  lose 
the  market  which  revenue  supplies.   But  this  revenue 
itself  also  consists  of  commodities  produced  by  capi- 
tal ;  it  is  that  portion  of  them  which  is  set  apart  for 
final  consumption;    and  this   portion   is  the   market 
for  the  remainder.     Here  is  the  point  which  chiefly 
demands  attention.     Under  an  industrial  system  or- 
ganised by  means  of  a  recognised  currency  or  medium 
of  exchange,  the  portion  of  commodities  which  is  the 
revenue  of  particular  persons  is  not  separated  from 
the  remainder,  but  both  together  remain  in  the  hands 
of  dealers  until  purchased  piecemeal,  for  present  use, 
by  the  virtual  owners,  namely,  those  who  have  the 
command  of  them  by  possessing  portions  of  the  recog- 
nised currency.    He  who  has  and  spends  a  revenue, 
say  of  £100,  would,  without  such  a  currency,  have 
to  keep  the  commodities  in  which  his  revenue  really 
consists  in  his  o^vn  hands;    and  these  commodities 
would  be  confined  to  such  articles  as  he  could  him- 
self produce.     But  this  alters  nothing  in  their  nature 
as  the  market  for  the    commodities  which  are   set 
apart  for  productive    consumption.      Those   dealers 
who  deal  in  articles  of  final  consumption  are,  as  it 
were,  the  commodity  bankers  of  the  community,  and 
are  paid  for  their  trouble  by  a  command  of  commodi- 
ties, part  of  which  replaces  their  capital,  part  is  con- 
sumed as  revenue.    All  the  commodities  in  the  hands 
of  such  dealers  taken  together  constitute  the  revenue 
of  the  community ;  of  which  the  revenue  of  the  deal- 
ers themselves  is  a  part.     The  revenue  of  the  com- 
munity is  distinguishable  by  its  being  in  the  hands 
of  the  dealers  in  articles  of  final  consumption,  but 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


365 


that  of  individuals  is  undistinguishable  except  by  the 
sums  of  money  with  which  each  person  commands 
those  articles. 

^5.  Just  as  market  price  is  the  thing  to  be  fixed 
on  as  the  starting  point,  when  we  are  analysing  ex- 
changes statically,  so  in  analysing  them  dynamically, 
that  is,  in  considering  the  movement  of  exchanges 
from  year  to  year,  revenue  is  the  starting  point, 
being  the  fund  out  of  which  comes  the  remuneration 
for  all  employment  of  caj)ital.  Revenue  however 
may  be  considered  as  composed  of  all  the  sums  paid 
by  consumers  to  dealers,  at  rates  which  are  called 
general  as  distinguished  from  trade  prices;  it  is  to 
them  that  trade  prices,  together  with  the  kmd  and 
amount  of  goods  exchanged,  have  in  the  long  run 
to  conform ;  and  by  them  that  the  success  or  failure 
of  speculation  is  determined. 

96,  It  is  in  the  dynamical  branch  or  aspect  of 
political  economy,  which,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind, 
is  also  its  historical  aspect,  that  most  of  the  great 
moot  questions  of  practical  importance  arise,  such, 
for  instance,  as  most  of  those  stated  by  Mr.  F.  Har- 
rison in  his  admirable  article  on  the  Limits  of  Poli- 
tical Economy  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  June  15, 
1865,  "What  are  the  laws  of  population  ?  Are  small 
farms  or  large  farms  best?  Does  the  peasant  jDro- 
prietor  thrive?  Define  the  'wages  fund.'  What  de- 
cides the  remuneration  of  labour  ?  State  some  of  the 
laws  of  the  accumulation  of  profits.  Give  the  ratio 
of  the  relative  increase  of  j)opulation,  and  the  means 
of  subsistence.  What  are  the  economical  results  of 
direct  and  indirect  taxation?  of  strict  entails?  of 
trade-unions?  of  poor-laws?  and  so  on."  Taxation 
and   Free    Trade,   questions  which   usually   form   so 


Book  H. 
Ch.  IV. 


§95. 
Statical  logic 
of  exchange. 


366  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  il      important  a  feature  in  treatises  of  political  economy, 
-^         belono;  to  its  dynamical  not  its  statical  branch.    They 

S  95.  o  1/  _    ^     -^ 

staticaiiogic  are  parts  of  economical  policy,  the  art  of  political 
economy,  'the  rules  of  which  depend  upon  the  dif- 
ferent circumstances  of  diiferent  communities.  Be- 
fore any  fixed  course  of  economical  policy  can  be 
adopted,  principles  must  be  established  which  involve 
an  answer,  one  way  or  another,  to  questions  of  the 
kind  just  enumerated.  But  all  such  questions  de- 
pend for  their  solution  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  com- 
parative strength  of  different  motives  under  different 
conditions;  questions  which  consequently  cannot  be 
answered  by  a  mere  logic  of  political  economy,  but 
only  by  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  human  practice 
generally  and  of  the  interdependence  of  all  its  several 
modes  of  activity.  Before  the  dynamical  logic  of  poli- 
tical economy  can  be  attempted  with  anything  like 
success,  a  much  more  detailed  analysis  than  exists  at 
present  must  have  been  made  of  the  interaction  of 
men  in  all  branches  of  history ;  then  perhaps  we  may 
be  able  by  degrees  to  descend  from  the  whole  to  a 
part,  and  establish  one  by  one  propositions  which, 
when  systematised,  will  form  the  dynamical  logic  of 
the  science.  Meantime,  we  can  only  signalise  the 
place  at  which  its  logic  as  a  whole  is  imperfect,  and 
where  immense  discoveries  are  still  remaining  to  be 
made.  This  however  is  no  ground  for  dissatisfaction 
with  the  logic  of  values  in  the  statical  branch,  so  far 
as  it  may  be  held  to  be  actually  established. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


367 


§96. 


Air  idea  di  quel  metallo, 
Portentoso,  onnipossente, 
Un  volcano  la  iiiia  mente 
Gia  comincia  a  diventar. 

II  Barbiere. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


I. 

I.  We  now  come  to  the  second  great  branch  of 
the  statical  logic  of  political  economy,  Money  as  the 
means  and  measure  of  exchange.  This  branch  is  not 
only  one  half,  but  also  one  entire  aspect,  of  the  whole 
science,  so  that  the  whole  of  it  might  be  treated  as 
a  question  of  money,  without  omitting  any  of  its 
essential  features.  Money  stands  to  exchanges  as 
lanD-uasre  to  thouo;ht:  it  is  the  measure  and  the  ex- 
pression  of  value  in  all  its  possible  analyses,  and  it 
is  also  the  means  of  communicating  values,  as  words 
are  of  communicating  thoughts,  in  precisely  mea- 
sured portions  and  shapes.  The  mode  of  origin  and 
adoption  of  money  is  besides  an  instance  of  the  same 
process  of  consciousness  as  the  mode  of  origin  and 
adoption  of  language ;  each  is  a  case  of  the  volitional 
and  conventional  adoption,  for  a  definite  purpose,  of 
objects  and  of  modes  of  action  offered  in  the  first  in- 
stance by  spontaneously  arising  processes,  such  as, 
in  the  case  of  money,  the  use  of  tallies  and  other 
simple  records  of  barter ;  and  each  grows  in  minute- 
ness and  complexity  of  device  with  the  growth  of 
that  which  it  ascertains  and  communicates,  namely, 
wealth  in  the  one  case,  thought  in  the  other.  The 
comparison  of  words  to  coin  has,  then,  a  greater  apt- 
ness of  analogy  than  was  probably  contemplated  by 
those  who  first  drew  it.      Money  is  the  causa  cognq- 


368 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


scendi,  the  evidence,  of  the  values  of  exchanged  com- 
modities, as  fixed  by  the  exchange  itself;  and  it  is 
also  the  means  of  reckoning;  the  U  and  D  elements 
of  that  value,  by  each  party  to  the  bargain  before 
he  concludes  it.  It  is  a  perfectly  general  instrument 
of  calculating,  expressing,  and  communicating  values, 
indefinitely  subtil  and  flexible.  U,  it  has  been  shown, 
is  the  perception,  the  subjective  aspect,  of  a  value- 
in-use;  a  certain  sum  of  money,  the  lirice  of  that 
value,  is  the  name,  sign,  measure,  and  means  of  trans- 
ferring and  commanding  it.  The  metaphysical  dis- 
tinctions of  objective  and  subjective  aspects,  and  of 
spontaneous  and  voluntary  actions,  are  thus  pre- re- 
quisites to  a  full  comprehension  of  the  phenomena  of 
money ;  and  a  reference  of  the  phenomena  to  these 
distinctions  is  the  only  guarantee  that  any  compre- 
hension of  them  is  exhaustive. 

2.  In  treating  the  first  branch  of  the  logic  we 
have  already  used  money  as  the  measure  of  value, 
nor  would  it  be  possible  to  do  otherwise  consistently 
with  beino-  intellio-ible.  The  values  of  commodities 
are  always  estimated  in  money;  money  is  their  lan- 


guage,  prices  are 


their 


names. 


But 


now,   m 


the 


second  branch  of  the  logic,  we  have  to  treat  of  this 
language  itself;  and  the  circumstance  which  gives 
this  branch,  money,  its  consistence  as  an  independent 
subject,  capable  of  being  treated  by  itself,  is  this,  that 
the  mode  in  which  money  serves  to  effect  exchanges 
between  commodities  is  by  being  itself  exchanged 
against  each  of  them  in  turn,  in  separate  transactions. 
It  is  no  longer  some  commodities  against  others,  but 
money  against  all,  that  is  the  object  in  view.  Money 
is  the  universal  purchaser,  one  commodity  against  all 
ijie  rest.     The  point  of  view  therefore  is  altered,  from 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


369 


that  of  the  acquirer  of  commodities  to  that  of  the 
acquirer  of  money  by  means  of  commodities. 

3.  And  here  also  is  seen  the  logical  necessity,  in 
poKtical  economy,  of  making  the  foreseen  result  of 
transactions  the  starting  point,  of  treating  the  subject 
as  an  Art,  governed  by  motives,  and  its  laws  as  laws 
of  voluntary  action.  Just  as  the  price  of  a  com- 
modity, paid  when  it  is  finally  brought  to  market, 
determined  the  amount  of  remuneration  to  its  several 
producers,  and  the  anticipation  of  that  price  stimu- 
lated or  depressed  production,   so  also  the  value  of 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


that 


price. 


estimated   in    commodities   of  all   kinds 


which  it  may  purchase,  is  the  remuneration  for  pro- 
curing the  money  of  which  it  consists,  the  final  cause 
of  procuring  money  at  all.  A  certain  sum  of  money 
has  a  certain  quantity  of  commodities  or  services  as 
its  value,  and  the  procuring  those  commodities  or 
services  is  the  motive  for  procurmg  the  money.  As 
all  production  of  commodities  rests  on  the  expectation 
of  remuneration  by  exchanging  them,  so  all  produc- 
tion of  money  rests  on  the  expectation  that  it  will 
always  command  or  purchase  an  equivalent  value  in 
commodities.  All  money  therefore  in  its  nature  is 
credit,  confidence  in  the  purchasing  power  of  an  other- 
wise useless  commodity ;  and  for  the  same  reason  all 
money  is  debt,  that  is,  it  is  commodities  owing  to  the 
person  who  has  money  to  pay  for  them,  though  of 
course  not  a  debt  legally  enforceable. 
4.   Money  accordingly  is  three  things : 

1.  The  measure  of  value  of  other  commodities, 

2.  The  medium  of  exchange  of  other  commo- 

dities, 

3.  A  commodity  possessing  exchange  value  itself. 
We  may  put  out  of  the  question  the  value-in-use  and 

VOL.  II.  BB 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monev. 


370  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

^'h^iv "      "^  exchange  of  the  precious  metals  for  purposes  of 

— —         art  and  ornament,  which  is  entirely  irrelevant  to  this 

Statical  logic    brauch  of  political  economy.     In  this  capacity  they 

of  money.  -•-  •'  l  J  J 

are  one  commodity  among  others,  and  belong  like 
the  rest  to  the  first  branch.  But  the  value-in-use  of 
the  precious  metals  as  money  is  their  serving  as  a 
measure  of  value  and  medium  of  exchange  for  other 
commodities;  and  this  value-in-use  is  one  ground,  one 
cause,  of  their  exchange  value ;  it  is  their  U  element. 
But  to  constitute  this  exchange  value  the  element  D 
is  requisite.  This  element  is  provided  for  by  cost  of 
production.  The  cost  of  production,  since  money  is 
a  commodity  produced  by  definite  quantities  of  labour 
and  capital,  is  the  D,  and  the  services  rendered  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  and  measure  of  value  are  the  U. 
But  here  arises  an  apparent  contradiction,  which  I  do 
not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  noticed  or  clearly 
explained,  in  the  functions  of  money.  It  is  this :  the 
exchange  value,  or  purchasing  power,  of  money  has 
been  said  to  depend  upon  its  D,  or  cost  of  produc- 
tion, together  with  its  U,  or  power  of  serving  as 
a  medium  of  exchange  and  measure  of  value  ;  but 
its  serving  as  a  medium  of  exchange  and  measure  of 
value  is  its  purchasing  power;  it  purchases  that  for 
which  it  is  exchanged,  the  value  of  which  it  measures. 
In  other  words,  its  exchange  value  is  at  one  time  re- 
presented as  the  product  of  D  and  U,  and  at  another 
as  U  alone,  one  element  only  of  itself.  How  escape 
from  this  circle? 

5.  The  solution  is  this:  The  U  element  of  the 
exchange  value  of  money  is  not  the  definite  value  of 
this  or  that  particular  quantity  of  money,  but  the 
power  of  rendering  the  service  of  measuring  and  ex- 
changing values  generally,   a  service  not  greater  in 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


371 


exchansres  of  a  laro-e  than  of  a  small  amount.     It  is 
the  D  element,  or  cost  of  production  of  any  definite 
amount  of  money,  which  gives  to  the  money  so  pro- 
duced its   power   of  measuring  and  exchanging   for 
definite  amounts  of  other  commodities ;  but  without 
the  general  and  indefinite  U  the  D  element  would 
be  powerless  to  give  money  any  exchange  value  at 
all.     Hence  the  contradiction  is  only  apparent,  aris- 
ing from  our  falsely  attributing  to  the  U  element  of 
the  exchange  value,  or  purchasing  power,  of  money 
a  definite  amount,  which  it  only  acquires  from  com- 
bination with  D,  the  cost  of  production  of  a  definite 
quantity  of  metal;    in   other  words,   from   confusing 
two  distinct  senses  of  the  symbol  U.     Mankind  were 
desirous  that  the  service  of  measuring  and  purchasing 
values  should  be  performed,  if  any  commodity  could 
be  found  to  perform  it.     The  cost  of  production  of 
money  enabled  it  to  perform  the  service,  by  not  only 
giving  money  a  common  measure  of  value  with  other 
commodities,  namely,  the  quantity  of  labour  requisite 
to  produce  it  and  them,  but  also  by  giving  it  a  defi- 
nite value  of  its  own  on  condition  of  a  service  being 
rendered  by  it,  on  condition  of  its  having  some  U. 
(See  §  95.  i).     The  U  arises  from  an  universally  felt 
want,  and  is  therefore  universally  operative  when  com- 
bined with  D.    Several  reasons  then  concurred  for  the 
selection  of  the  precious  metals  as  the  medium  of 
exchange,  such  as  their  malleability,  their  durability, 
their  divisibility,  the  comparatively  slight  variations 
in  the  quantities  of  labour  requisite  to  produce  equal 
amounts  of  them  from  time  to  time,  and  their  con- 
taining the  results  of  much  labour  in  small  compass. 
6.  The  element  T>  is  essentially  necessary  to  con- 
stitute the  exchange  value  of  money,  and  of  every 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


372 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV, 

§96. 


particular  portion  of  it ;  but  it  is  not  equally  essential 
that  the  D  should  consist  in  cost  of  production,  that 
staticaUogic    the  mouey  should  be  one  of  those  commodities  whose 
o  monej.      j-^^^^j.^[  valuc  depciids  upon  the  quantity  of  labour 
necessary  to  produce  them,   and  not  one  Avhere  it 
depends  upon   scarcity  or  limitation  of  the   supply. 
But  it  is  far  better  that  it    should  belong   to   the 
former  class.     If  its  D  consisted  in  limitation  of  the 
supply,  this  limitation  must  be  either  natural  or  arti- 
ficial, and  in  either  case  a  greater  burden  would  be 
imposed  on  the  volition  of  men  than  it  could  easily 
support,  in  the  one  case  by  their  being  compelled  to 
accept,  and  accept  with  equal  confidence,  from  some 
arbitrary  source,  the  determination  of  values  which 
are  now  determined  by  the  physical  laws  of  difficulty 
of  production;    it  would  throw  upon  U  alone  the 
functions  of  U  and  D  together.     If  on  the  other  hand 
the  limit  was  fixed  by  nature,  in  the  scarcity  of  the 
medium  chosen  as  money,  say  for  instance  shells  of 
a  certain  kind,  it  would  on  the  one  hand  not  have 
the  expansibility  of  metals  to  meet  the  rapidly  in- 
creasing commerce  and  wealth  of  the  world,  and  it 
w^ould  be  liable  on  the  other  hand  to  sudden  and 
perhaps  violent  alterations  of  quantity,  since  we  could 
never  be  certain  that  some  new  store  of  such  shells 
might  not  be   discovered,  whereby  the  relations  of 
money  to  commodities  would  be  altered.     Again,  if 
the  limit  was  fixed  artificially,  suppose  by  the  use 
of  paper  money  issued  by  governments,  who  is  there 
who  could  either  be  supposed  capable  of  estimating 
the  quantity  required,  or  trusted  not  to  exceed  that 
quantity,  if  it  were  left  in  his  power  to  issue  ?     In 
either  case  the  confidence  in  the  purchasing  power 
of  particular  sums  of  money  would  be  lessened,  and 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


373 


insecurity  in  all  commercial  transactions  increased. 
All  money  is  credit,  confidence  in  the  purchasing 
jDower  of  money,  that  is,  in  the  readiness  of  other 
persons  to  give  commodity  value  for  money  value. 
And  this  confidence  has  been  the  growth  of  ages, 
gradually  strengthened  by  the  habitual  use  of  a  com- 
modity as  money  which  it  required  real  labour  to 
procure,  but  probably  founded  originally  in  the  effect 
produced  on  the  imagination  of  men  by  seeing  the 
use  of  the  precious  metals  as  articles  of  ornament  and 
luxury. 

7.  A  metallic  currency  is  self-regulating;  as  soon 
as  it  becomes  scarce  in  proportion  to  the  commodities 
requiring  to  be  exchanged,  its  value  rises  and  re- 
munerates the  additional  labour  required  to  produce 
an  additional  quantity.  No  one  judges  how  much 
money  is  required  to  perform  the  exchanges  of  other 
commodities;  but  as  soon  as  a  certain  quantity  of 
money,  produced  by  a  certain  quantity  of  labour, 
will  buy  more  goods  than  can  be  produced  by  an 
equal  quantity  of  labour,  some  one  will  be  found  to 
spend  the  labour  in  producing  money  and  not  goods. 
And  so  long  as  money  is  being  produced  from  the 
mines,  so  long  will  money  be  somewhat  above  its 
natural  value,  owing  to  scarcity  having  produced 
an  oscillation  in  its  favour  above  the  natural  value 
point.  » 

8.  All  money  is  credit,  and  metallic  money  is  that 
kind  of  it  which  is  most  invariable  and  most  secure. 
A  paper  currency  must  therefore  always  have  a  me- 
tallic basis,  that  is,  must  represent  some  real  amount 
of  the  commodity  chosen  as  the  medium  of  exchange. 
Under  this  condition  it  is  possible  to  supersede  the 
use  of  metal  by  paper  to  a  great  extent,  and  thus  save 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§9G. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


374 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


the  expense  of  the  more  costly  meclmm.  "  A  cur- 
rency" says  Ricardo  "is  in  its  most  perfect  state  when 
it  consists  wholly  of  paper  money,  but  of  paper  money 
of  an  equal  value  with  the  gold  which  it  professes  to 
represent."  This  perfection  however,  like  all  ideals,  is 
unattainable  actually;  since  the  only  certain  means 
of  securing  an  equal  value  in  a  paper  currency  is  by 
making  it  convertible  into  metals  at  the  demand  of 
the  holder,  a  condition  which  supposes  a  considerable 
part  of  the  currency  to  consist  of  metal.  The  pre- 
cious metals  having  once  for  all  been  established  as 
the  universal  purchaser,  being  themselves  nothing  but 
the  most  secure  and  invariable  form  of  credit  or  of 
del^t,  all  other  forms  of  currency  share  the  same 
nature  and  possess  a  value  which  varies  with  the 
confidence  secured  to  them,  from  time  to  time,  by 
the  credit  of  the  persons  who  issue  them.  Bullion, 
coin,  notes,  cheques,  bills,  book  credits,  and  so  on, 
are  so  many  forms  of  Money,  which  circulate  freely 
in  times  of  confidence  and  speculation,  but  which  are 
thrown  out  of  use  in  times  of  distrust,  and  in  inverse 
proportion  to  the  security  they  ofi'er, — notes  in  this 
country,  notes  and  coin  in  others,  and  bullion  in  all, 
being  the  last  to  remain  in  circulation,  the  kinds  of 
currency  which  no  want  of  confidence  has  ever  been 
sufiicient  entirely  to  invalidate,  so  firm  are  the  imagi- 
native bases  upon  which  they  rest. 

9.  But  now  more  precisely  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion. What  are  the  main  kinds  or  forms  of  money? 
They  will  be  found  to  be  three.  The  process  which 
established  the  commodity,  metallic  money,  as  the 
representative  of  other  commodities  or  services  does 
not  stop  there;  the  same  motives  lead  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  some  representatives  of  metallic  money 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


375 


itself;  for  money  is  the  universal  object  of  acquisition, 
and  yet  it  is  impossible,  for  the  wealthy  at  least,  to 
have  all  their  wealth  in  the  shape  of  money  in  pocket 
or  cellar.  Written  or  printed  documents  thus  become 
to  money  the  same  thing  that  money  is  to  other  com- 
modities; their  possession  gives  a  right  to  the  pos- 
session of  the  quantity  of  money  specified  by  them, 
against  the  persons  who  have  issued  them;  the  dif- 
ference being  that,  while  no  one  is  bound  to  sell 
commodities  unless  he  chooses,  the  issuers  of  docu- 
ments representing  money  are  bound  to  fulfil  the 
contract  they  have  entered  into  by  issuing  them. 
All  such  documents  are  securities  for  money,  and 
rest  on  credit  in  the  sense  of  belief  in  the  ability  of 
the  promisor  to  fulfil  his  engagement.  Credit  means 
a  believed  promise  to  pay  money  at  a  future  time, 
with  or  without  interest  for  its  use. 

10.  Of  these  documents  there  are  many  kinds, 
all  depending  upon  positive  law  to  define  their  cha- 
racter and  secure  their  convertibility;  for,  as  just 
shown,  they  all  differ  from  money  itself  in  being- 
creatures  of  contract,  not  of  universal  and  tacit  con- 
vention. All  money  is  credit,  but  some  kinds  of  it 
consist  in  contracts,  positive  promises,  to  pay  the  me- 
tallic kind ;  they  are  credit  by  a  double  title.  Hence 
the  distinction  between  a  metallic  and  paper  currency. 

1 1 .  But  not  all  documents  of  credit  are  credit 
currency  simply;  many  are  this  and  something  else 
besides,  namely,  a  security  not  for  money  in  hand 
but  for  money  in  prospect.  There  is  a  distinction 
to  be  introduced  into  credit  currency  itself,  a  distinc- 
tion between  those  documents  which  are  designed 
by  the  legislator  to  serve  as  substitutes  for  money 
actually  possessed,  to  provide  a  more  convenient  and 


Book  TL 
Cii.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


376 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


less  expensive  medium  of  excliange  for  other  com- 
modities, which  therefore  constitute,  together  vdth 
coin,  the  national  and  legal  currency  of  the  country, 
and  those  documents  on  the  other  hand  which  are 
designed  by  individuals  and  permitted  by  the  legisla- 
tor to  serve  as  representatives  of  money  in  prospect, 
that  is,  of  credit  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 
The  documents  which  compose  credit  currency  are 
therefore  distinguished  by  such  marks  as  these,  1st, 
their  being  payable  on  demand  and  to  bearer,  2nd, 
their  licing  issued  only  by  certain  responsible  persons 
or  bodies  of  men  who,  in  the  opinion  of  the  legislator, 
are  likely  always  to  be  able  to  pay  them  in  specie, 
for  which  certain  conditions  may  possibly  be  im- 
posed, such  as  are  contained,  for  instance,  in  the  Bank 
Charter  Act,  1844.  These  documents  may  be  called 
Public  Credit  Currency. 

1 1 .  The  third  kind  of  monev,  the  second  division 
of  credit  currency,  consists  of  documents  which  may 
be  called  a  Private  Credit  Currency.  They  are  pro- 
mises to  pay  money  by  private  persons,  and  comprise 
Deposits  in  Banks,  and  Cheques  and  Drafts  which 
transfer  these.  Book  Debts,  Bills,  and  Promissory 
Notes,  a  class  of  documents  which  performs  a  far 
greater  part  of  the  exchange  transactions  of  the  coun- 
try than  is  performed  by  means  of  both  the  former 
classes  taken  together.  The  amount  of  these  docu- 
ments fluctuates  with  the  exchanges  which  they  are 
required  to  perform,  being  created  for  the  purpose 
of  performing  them,  and  being  destroyed  when  the 
transactions  which  gave  them  birth  are  completed. 
*'  The  amount  of  currency  or  circulating  medium  in 
any  country,"  says  Mr.  Macleod,  "  is  the  sum  total  of 
all  the  debts  due  to  every  individual  in  it^     Theory 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


377 


and  Practice  of  Banking,  Vol.  i,  p.  23.  2nd  ed.  And 
at  p.  102  he  says,  "It  is  certain  that  '  credit'  ex- 
ceeds '  money'  many  times  in  this  country,  for  where- 
as it  is  not  supposed  that  the  actual  money  exceeds 
.£60,000,000,  the  credit  in  bills  of  exchange,  and 
which  is  only  one  form  of  it,  exceeds  £400,000,000." 
In  one  sense  therefore  private  credit  currency  is  as 
much  currency  as  Bank  notes  or  metals;  but  the 
element  of  individual  credit  is  much  more  important 
in  this  class  than  in  public  credit  currency,  just  as  it 
is  more  important  in  the  latter  than  in  metallic  cur- 
rency. There  is  a  scale  of  security  inversely  propor- 
tioned to  the  use  made  of  bare  credit  in  the  different 
classes  of  currency.  Bank  notes  hold  a  middle  posi- 
tion, and  the  controversy  which  raged  so  long  as  to 
whether  they  were  money  or  not  is  one  which  cannot 
be  settled  by  a  single  sentence,  yes  or  no.  So  long 
as  they  are  de  facto  convertible  they  are  money; 
when  once  they  cease  to  be  convertible  they  become 
mere  securities ;  for  they  are  of  the  nature  of  securi- 
ties, but  securities  so  fenced  as  to  have  the  value  of 
ready  money. 

13.  Nor  is  this  distinction  of  money  into  three 
classes  or  kinds  of  currency,  that  is  to  say,  Metals, 
Public  Credit  Currency,  and  Private  Credit  Currency, 
applicable  only  to  particular  countries ;  it  is  applic- 
able also  to  the  international  concerns  of  the  whole 
world.  It  is  no  special  distinction  but  an  universal 
one.  The  only  difference  is,  that  there  is,  at  present, 
no  class  of  documents  which  are  an  international 
Public  Credit  Currency,  since  there  is  no  universal 
coinage,  and  no  international  government  to  establish 
the  security  of  paper  documents.  International  me- 
tallic  currency  consists  of  bullion,  or,  if  of  coin,  of 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


378 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


coin  taken  at  its  bullion  value  ;  and  international 
private  credit  currency  of  Foreign  Bills  of  Exchange. 
The  different  national  currencies  are  like  so  many 
different  languages  which  need  translating  into  other 
lanofuao'cs  before  their  value  abroad  can  be  deter- 
mined;  but  Bullion,  which  is  the  foundation  of  all 
alike,  is  the  universal  language  which  is  everywhere 
current.  The  reason  for  these  remarks  will  appear 
farther  on. 


II. 

1 4.  The  different  kinds  of  currency  having  been 
thus  distinguished,  the  next  question  is  to  determine 
the  different  Functions  of  money,  the  different  kinds 
of  transactions  in  which  it  is  employed.  When  we 
have  obtained  these,  we  ought  to  be  able,  by  com- 
paring them  with  the  different  kinds  of  currency 
which  are  employed  in  them,  to  discover  the  bearings 
on  each  other  of  all  the  various  operations  which  are 
transacted  by  means  of  money.  Now  two  functions 
of  money  are  plainly  enough  deducible  from  what  has 
been  already  said,  namely,  money  of  all  kinds  pur- 
chasing commodities  or  services,  and  money  in  some 
of  its  forms  purchasing  money  in  other  of  its  forms ; 
money  in  the  goods  market  and  money  in  the  money 
market ;  having  in  the  former  a  commodity  value,  in 
the  latter  a  money  value  or  price.  But  just  as  credit 
currency  had  to  be  distinguished  above  into  two 
classes,  public  and  private  credit  currency,  so  here 
also  the  money  of  all  kinds  in  the  money  market  has 
to  give  place  to  two  functions,  one  where  one  form 
of  currency  is  exchanged  against  other  forms,  to 
which  function  alone  it  will  be  proper  to  restrict  the 
term  Price  of  money,   and  the   other  where  it  pur- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


379 


chases,  not  another  form  of  currency,  but  the  Use  of 
money  or  currency  for  a  certain  time,  and  pays  for 
that  use  by  Interest  or  Discount,  in  addition  to  re- 
turning the  same  sum  at  the  time  specified.  Money 
promised  to  be  paid  at  a  certain  time,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  Interest  then,  in  return  for  the  same  sum 
received  now,  or  money  promised  to  be  paid  at  a  cer- 
tain time,  in  return  for  the  same  sum  received  with 
the  subtraction  of  Discount  now,  is  money  purchas- 
ing the  use  of  money,  money  in  the  Money  Market 
properly  so  called,  money  which  has  not  price,  nor 
commodity  value,  but  money  value  ;  which  money 
value  is  great  or  small  according  as  the  rate  of  in- 
terest or  of  discount  is  low  or  high ;  great  if  the  rate 
is  low,  small  if  the  rate  is  high.  Or  conversely,  the 
value  of  the  money  which  purchases  the  promises  to 
pay,  that  is,  the  securities,  is  great  if  the  rate  of  in- 
terest or  discount  is  high,  and  small  if  it  is  low, 

15.  It  does  not  follow  that  only  private  credit 
currency  will  be  used  for  these  purchases;  currency 
of  all  three  kinds  may  be  used  to  purchase  the  pro- 
mises to  pay  with  interest,  that  is,  the  securities ;  but 
the  promises  to  pay,  the  securities  themselves,  must 
always  belong  to  private  credit  currency,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  of  their  essence  not  to  be  money  in  hand  but 
only  money  promised.  Nevertheless,  these  securities 
themselves  may  be  used,  in  the  goods  market,  as  cur- 
rency purchasing  goods,  or  in  the  money  changer's 
market  as  one  form  of  currency  purchasing  another 
form.  Only  in  the  money  market  proper,  where 
money  has  a  money  value,  they  are  not  currency  but 
its  opposite,  the  thing  that  currency  purchases. 

16.  This  double  character  of  the  documents  com- 
posing the  private  credit  currency  is  the  circumstance 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


380 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Oh.  IV. 


§  96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monej'. 


which  perhaps  most  of  all  wraps  monetary  matters 
in  confusion.  It  is  not  to  any  difference  in  the  nature 
of  the  currency  in  the  money  market  that  the  dif- 
ference in  operation  is  owing,  but  to  the  difference 
of  the  functions  which  currency  performs,  in  the  one 
case  buying  currency  or  goods,  in  the  other  buying 
the  use  of  currency,  and  leaving  its  repayment  de- 
pendent upon  that  use,  the  use  which  is  still  to  be 
made  of  it,  upon  its  being  used  in  a  remunerative 
manner.  All  credit  currency  is  a  promise  to  pay 
money,  but  that  credit  currency  which  is  discounted, 
or  which  purchases  currency  with  interest,  is  a  pledge 
upon  future  industry,  and  not  upon  profits  already 
realised,  unless  that  industry  makes  default.  And 
all  money,  whether  metallic  or  credit  currency,  which 
is  purchased  by  interest-bearing  securities  is  borrowed 
Capital,  borrowed  on  the  expectation  of  future  pro- 
fits. Not  all  credit  currency,  not  all  private  credit 
currency,  is  borrowed  capital ;  it  is  borrowed  capital 
only  if  purchased  by  interest-bearing  securities.  The 
mode  in  which,  the  purpose  for  which,  a  credit  cur- 
rency is  issued  determines  whether  or  not  it  is  a 
creation  of  capital ;  and  capital  can  only  be  created 
in  the  money  market  by  being  borrowed;  the  money 
capital  which  a  man  has  of  his  own  is  not  a  new 
creation  out  of  expectancies,  but  comes  from  profits 
already  realised.  So  also  are  all  those  Deposits  in 
Banks  on  which  no  interest  is  paid;  it  is  true  they 
are  liabilities,  but  they  are  liabilities  secured,  not  by 
future  industry,  but  by  the  reserves,  the  portion  of 
already  realised  profits  reserved  to  meet  them.  Credit 
currency  is  based  upon  the  reserves  of  bullion;  credit 
currency  which  is  capital  is  based  upon  the  expecta- 
tion of  future  profits. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  TRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


381 


17.  Capital  in  the  form  of  commodities  can  only 
come  from  profits  already  realised ;  it  is  that  part  of 
profits  which  is  set  apart  for  future  productive  con- 
sumption. When  borrowed  it  must  be  borrowed  from 
the  same  source.  But  when  Ave  turn  to  money  capi- 
tals, we  find  that  future  industry  can  be  anticipated 
and  employed  almost  as  easily  as  if  its  results  were 
already  realised.  The  invention  of  Money  enables 
all  the  anticipated  profits  to  be  nsed  in  further  pro- 
duction, as  if  they  were  already  realised  in  the  form 
of  commodities.  And  this  it  does  by  the  combina- 
tion of  the  use  of  private  credit  currency  with  the 
circumstance,  the  principle  of  which  was  explained 
in  §  95.  94,  that  all  commodities  whatever  remain 
in  the  hands  of  the  dealers  mitil  commanded  by  the 
holders  of  money ;  so  that  the  expected  demand  rules 
the  quantity  of  commodities  produced,  irrespective 
of  whether  this  demand  comes  from  money  already 
realised  or  from  money  borrowed  only  on  anticipation 
of  future  profits.  But  all  these  commodities  pur- 
chased to  be  used  as  capital  by  borrowed  money  are 
to  the  purchaser  borrowed  capital,  borrowed  first  in 
the  form  of  money,  and  obtained  in  the  money  market 
by  the  creation  of  interest-bearing  securities. 

18.  So  far  the  mere  invention  of  money  allowed 
us  to  proceed  in  the  creation  of  capital ;  but  modern 
banking  permits  us  a  far  greater  advance.  "  The 
great  modern  discovery,"  says  Mr.  Macleod,  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Banking,  Vol  i.  p.  91,  "is  to  make 
the  debts  themselves  saleable  commodities;  to  sell 
them  either  for  ready  money,  or  for  other  debts  of 
more  convenient  amount,  and  immediately  exchange- 
able for  money  on  demand,  and  therefore  equivalent 
to  money."    Before  this,  a  man  could  lend  his  realised 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


382 


LO&IC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


profits  in  the  form  of  money,  and  another  man  could 
borrow  this  money  on  the  credit  of  his  future  profits 
to  be  realised  by  its  use.  He  could  use  his  expecta- 
tions as  if  they  were  already  realised  capital.  But 
now,  by  the  modern  system  of  banking,  not  only 
can  he  do  this,  but,  while  he  is  using  the  capital  lent 
him  on  his  securities,  and  the  lender,  to  whom  those 
securities  are  given,  is  using  them  as  capital  by  dis- 
counting them  at  a  bank,  the  banker  also  can  employ 
the  greater  part  of  them  again  by  giving  a  credit  in 
his  books  for  their  present,  or  discounted,  value,  to 
meet  which  he  has  only  to  keep  a  small  portion  in 
reserve.  The  same  capital  is  employed  three  times, 
once  by  the  borrower  in  purchasing  commodities, 
once  by  the  lender  in  discounting  his  bill,  and  once 
by  the  banker  who  purchases  the  bill  by  creating  a 
liability ;  the  profits  of  the  banker  consisting  in  the  in- 
terest, which  he  deducts  as  discount,  when  he  creates 
the  liability,  and  receives  from  the  original  bor- 
rower when  the  bill  becomes  due.  "  There  are  two 
classes  of  traders  whose  especial  business  is  to  buy 
these  commercial  debts.  *  *  *  The  first  class  of 
these  traders  are  called  Bill  Discounters,  i.e.  buyers 
of  debts;  they  buy  these  debts  with  money.  The 
second  class  are  called  Bankers  ;  and  they  buy  these 
commercial  debts,  by  creating  other  debts  payable 
on  demand,"  namely,  by  creating  Deposits.  (Macleod, 
id.  id.     See  also  par.  89  of  the  present  §). 

19.  Money  in  all  its  three  forms,  and  in  all  its 
three  functions,  appears  from  what  has  been  said  to 
be  a  vast  structure  of  wealth,  the  counterpart  and 
purchaser  of  commodities  and  services,  in  all  their 
forms,  future  as  well  as  present.  No  portion  of 
wealth  here  without  a  corresponding  portion  there; 


of  money. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PllACTICAL  SCIENCES.  383 

no  exchano-e  here  without  a  corresponclino;  exchanfj;e       Book  ir. 

Cn  IV 

there :  in  whichever  of  the  two  sides  the  creation,  — ' 
destruction,  or  exchange,  may  originate.  Correla-  staticaiiogic 
tive  however  as  the  two  structures  are,  the  analysis, 
the  organisation,  of  each  is  peculiar  and  independent. 
The  wealth  of  commodities  and  services  depends  upon 
the  wants  and  wishes  and  labour  of  men,  and  upon 
the  laws  of  physical  nature  which  govern  the  pro- 
ducts of  that  labour.  It  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  ori- 
ginal possessions  and  the  original  skill  of  man.  Money 
wealth  is  an  outgrowth  of  one  commodity  only,  the 
precious  metals,  and  is  built  upon  this  foundation  by 
means  of  credit.  Forms  and  modes  of  credit  are  its 
logical  analysis.  Not  what  man  has  done  but  what 
man  will  do  is  the  substance  of  this  structure.  It 
is  not  the  present  result  of  the  past,  but  the  present 
realisation  of  the  future.  Possunt  quia  posse  videntur. 
But  the  question  may  occur,  What  is  the  real  value 
of  this  money  wealth,  and  still  more  of  this  credit 
wealth  ? 

20.  There  is  an  axiom,  true  in  its  proper  con- 
nection, but  pernicious  when  taken  alone,  that  the 
only  use  of  money  is  to  transfer  commodities ;  that 
commodities  are  the  only  wealth,  money  but  the  in- 
strument of  transferring  it ;  and  it  is  true  that  this 
is  its  only  value-in-use.  We  must  connect  this  with 
the  opposite  truth,  that  the  only  mode  in  wdiich  this 
this  transfer  is  effected  is  by  money  being  exchanged 
against  commodities  in  separate  transactions.  The 
resulting  truth  will  be,  that  money  is  real  wealth, 
a  commodity  having  exchange  value,  and  one  which, 
at  the  present  day,  is  essential  to  the  existence  of 
the  wealth  with  which  it  exchanges.  Without  their 
market,   the   demand   for    them,   these    commodities 


384 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV, 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  mone)'. 


would  be  valueless,  productive  of  no  enjoyment,  any 
more  than  gold  and  silver  taken  alone  can  be.  The 
value-in-use  of  the  commodities  is  gone  along  with 
their  exchange  value.  It  is  only  by  their  ha^dng 
exchange  value,  and  by  their  being  actually  ex- 
changed in  consequence,  that  they  can  be  enjoyed. 
But  this  exchange  value  is  procured  for  them  only 
by  means  of  the  money  which  they  purchase,  which 
is  their  immediate  market,  and  which  consequently 
has  an  exchange  value  itself. — Nothing  would  give 
me  greater  pleasure  than  to  find  my  views  in  ac- 
cordance with  those  of  the  present  Professor  of  Po- 
litical Economy  at  Oxford,  Mr.  Bonamy  Price;  and 
it  is  with  unfeigned  diffidence  that  I  venture  to  criti- 
cise anything  which  proceeds  from  him;  but  I  think 
that  the  cause  of  the  difference  between  his  views 
(see  his  Principles  of  Currency)  and  those  which  will 
be  here  maintamecl  lies  in  his  not  sufficiently  weigh- 
ing the  consequences  of  the  mode  in  which  the  ex- 
change of  commodities  is  effected  by  money,  namely, 
by  money  becoming  itself  a  separate  commodity  in 
the  two  transactions  into  which,  at  the  least,  every 
exchange  of  goods  for  goods  may  be  broken  up,  or, 
to  use  Mr.  Price's  own  expression,  by  the  '  substi- 
tution of  double  for  single  barter.'  Money  thus 
becoming  a  separate  commodity,  the  equivalent  in 
quantity  of  all  the  rest,  becomes  also  subject  to  laws 
of  its  own,  besides  those  which  affect  it  as  the  pur- 
chaser of  commodities,  or  which  are  based  immedi- 
ately upon  its  value-in-use. 

21.  It  may  seem  as  if  the  use  of  anticipated  pro- 
fits as  capital,  and  still  more  the  double  and  often 
treble  use  of  it  by  advances  on  securities,  is  a  crea- 
tion of  money  capital  which  has  no   corresponding 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


385 


commodity  capital  to  be  purchased  by.  But  this  is  a 
mistake  arising  from  the  distinctions  of  capital  being 
different  in  the  two  structures.  True,  all  commodity 
capital  must  be  already  in  existence  in  order  to  be 
used;,  while  the  money  capital  which  buys  it  may 
be  built  on  anticipation.  But  the  knowledge  that 
there  will  be  a  market,  a  demand,  for  so  much  com- 
modity capital,  a  demand  made  efficient  by  creating 
money  on  credit,  has  been  already  the  cause  of  a 
great  part  of  this  capital  being  produced,  of  so  much 
as  was  judged  likely  to  satisfy  that  demand,  that  is, 
to  be  sold  remuneratively  for  the  money  in  which 
the  demand  consisted.  The  credit  wealth  founded 
on  expectation  of  the  future  has  in  fact  doubled  and 
trebled  the  commodity  wealth  resulting  from  the  la- 
bour of  the  past.  It  was  neither  the  forces  of  nature 
nor  the  energies  of  man  that  were  in  default,  or 
stopped  short  at  a  certain  limit  of  production,  but 
the  market,  the  remuneration,  the  motive  for  putting 
those  forces  and  energies  to  work.  Credit  represents 
commodities,  true ;  those  of  next  year ;  it  purchases 
those  of  this,  which  are  supplied  in  quantity  to  meet 
the  demand.  And  similarly,  a  great  destruction  of 
credit  capital,  in  the  form  of  Deposits,  Book  Debts, 
or  Bills,  is  immediately  felt  in  the  check  given  to 
production  of  commodities,  from  more  having  been 
produced  than  will  now  meet  with  a  sale. 

12.  Nothing  can  show  more  clearly  than  the 
phenomena  of  money  the  necessity  of  building  poli- 
tical economy  upon  the  analysis  of  values,  and  of 
making  value  the  central  point  in  the  whole  theory. 
And  it  is,  I  believe,  to  Mr.  Macleod  that  is  due  the 
honour  of  having  been  the  first  to  see,  and  to  apply 
to  the  phenomena  of  money,  the  truth  that  money 

VOL.  II.  cc 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§  !)(). 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


386 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


is  "the  representative  of  dehf  in  opj^osition  to  the 
older  conception  of  its  being  the  medium  of  exchange. 
(Elements  of  Pol.  Econ.  Chap.  i.  sect.  12-18.)  He 
does  not  however,  at  least  as  I  understand  him,  deny 
the  truth  of  the  latter  conception,  but  its  efficacy  in 
explaining  and  analysing  the  phenomena. 

23.  The  conception  of  money  as  the  representa- 
tive of  debt,  or  of  money  purchasing  and  purchased 
by  commodities  in  separate  transactions,  is  a  further 
analysis  of  the  phenomena,  which  are  only  described 
in  general  terms,  or  in  their  general  character,  by 
the  conception  of  money  as  the  medium  of  exchange. 
The  first  conception  is  a  definition  of  money,  money 
defined  in  its  first  intention;  the  latter  conception 
is  a  description  of  money,  money  described  in  its 
second  intention.  And  there  can  hardly  be  a  better 
instance  than  this,  either  of  the  distinction  between 
first  and  second  intentions  itself,  or  of  the  superior 
efficacy  of  first  intentions  in  explanation  and  analysis. 
The  harmonising  effect  of  the  distinction  is  also  here 
apparent;  for  two  conceptions  which  appear  to  be  in 
conflict,  one  of  which  at  any  rate  it  is  sought  to  sub- 
stitute for  the  other,  are  shown  by  the  application 
of  the  distinction  in  question  to  be  not  only  not  con- 
flicting but  the  logical  complements  of  each  other. 
Both  therefore  not  only  may  be  but  must  be  held 
together,  if  a  complete  and  harmonious  view  of  the 
whole  subject  is  to  be  attained. 


Ill 


24.  We  come  next  to  the  consideration  of  the 
three  functions  of  money  in  their  order;  and  first 
of  the  function  of  money  purchasing  money,  or  the 
Price  of  one  kind  of  currency  in  another  kin(J"   Here 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


387 


we  must  first  of  all  distinguish  internal  currency  from 
international,  for  the  different  currencies  of  nations 
are  like  so  many  languages,  each  current  within  its 
own  limits,  each  bearing  a  price  when  estimated  in 
the  currency  of  another  nation,  and  all  having  one 
common  basis  and  common  measure,  namely,  Bullion, 
the  value  of  which  as  against  commodities  is  fixed 
by  the  relative  cost  of  production  of  definite  quan- 
tities of  it  and  them,  thus  serving  as  the  starting 
point,  the  unit  of  value,  in  estimating  the  price  of  bul- 
lion in  currency,  and  of  difi'erent  currencies  against 
each  other.  The  weight  and  fineness  of  bullion  are 
the  real  ultimate  standard  by  which  to  test  and  mea- 
sure all  coinage  values,  and  the  price  of  different 
coinages  in  each  other,  because  bullion  is  the  only 
commodity  which  directly  purchases  all  other  com- 
modities and  coinages  as  well. 

25.  When  bullion  is  coined  it  becomes  price,  the 
Mint  price  of  the  bullion  itself.  Gold  coins,  silver 
coins,  copper  coins,  and  notes,  are  modes  of  reckon- 
ing, not  only  the  value  of  the  bullion  in  commodities, 
but  the  price  of  the  bullion  in  coin.  Universal  cur- 
rency has  necessarily  as  many  standards  as  there  are 
kinds  of  bullion,  gold,  silver,  copper.  But  any  jjar- 
ticular  country  may  adopt  either  all  of  these,  or  two 
of  them,  or  one  only,  as  its  standard  of  currency. 
Supposing  it,  like  England,  to  adopt  gold  only,  then 
the  gold  coinage  is  the  standard  which  is  taken,  in- 
stead of  bullion,  as  the  measurement  of  all  other 
kinds  of  coinas^e  and  notes. 

26.  The  adoption  of  a  standard  and  the  use  of  a 
currency,  estimated  by  that  standard  and  in  its  terms, 
not  only  changes  at  once  the  object  of  contemplation 
from  universal  currency  to  a  number  of  particular 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


388 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      Currencies,  but  also  makes  uncoined  bullion  itself  a 

—         commodity  among  commodities,  instead  of  being  as 

Statical  logic    bcforc  tlic  uuivcrsal  purchaser  of  commodities.  There 

of  money.  .  tott 

cannot  be  two  universal  purchasers,  if  standard 
currencies  are  substituted  for  bullion  as  the  universal 
purchaser,  bullion  must  become  one  of  the  commodi- 
ties purchased  by  them.  Now  standard  currencies 
are  adopted  solely  for  convenience  of  transacting 
business;  so  long  as  this  motive  lasts  will  currencies 
be  the  universal  purchaser,  and  not  bullion.  Never- 
theless this  further  exercise  of  volition,  this  conven- 
tional adoption  of  standard  currencies,  cannot  alter 
the  natural  law  which  makes  bullion  the  universal 
purchaser ;  but  must  accommodate  itself  to  that  law 
as  its  condition  of  validity.  The  practical  j^roblem 
therefore  for  every  currency  is,  first,  to  conform  the 
value  of  the  coins  and  notes  which  compose  it  to  its 
own  standard,  and  secondly,  to  conform  that  stand- 
ard itself  to  the  bullion  which  professedly  affords  it; 
in  other  words,  to  provide  such  a  currency  in  com 
and  notes  that  the  same  amount  of  commodities  may 
be  purchased  by  a  given  sum  of  them  as  would  have 
been  purchasable  by  the  bullion  for  which  that  sum 
professes  to  be  a  substitute.  Thus  the  regulation  of 
currencies,  the  regulation  of  the  price  of  one  kind  of 
currency  in  another  kind,  and  of  the  price  of  bullion 
in  all  or  any  of  the  rest,  depends  upon  the  compari- 
son of  their  values  in  the  commodity  market;  the 
value  of  bullion  in  the  commodity  market  being  the 
standard  to  which  the  value  of  currencies  must  con- 
form ;  conforming  thereby  the  price  of  every  part  of 
those  currencies  to  every  other  part,  all  being  esti- 
mated in  bullion. 

27.  The  first  question,  then,  relates  to  the  price 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


389 


of  bullion  in  coin ;  and  here  it  will  be  sufficient  for 
the  purposes  of  logic  to  take  a  single,  metal,  gold, 
as  the  subject  of  enquiry.  A  nation  determines  to 
adopt  a  gold  coinage  as  the  form  of  all  legal  pay- 
ments. For  this  purpose  it  is  requisite  for  it  to 
fix  two  things,  first,  a  standard  fineness  of  bullion, 
second,  a  standard  weight,  or  quantity  of  that  fine- 
ness, in  the  coin  which  it  establishes  as  the  legal 
purchaser  of  commodities.  Thus  the  English  stand- 
ard of  fineness  is  22  carats  gold,  2  carats  alloy, 
out  of  a  total  of  24  ;  and  40  lbs.  Troy  of  gold,  of 
this  fineness,  are  to  be  coined  into  1869  sovereigns; 
thus  making  the  Mint  jirice  of  gold,  of  this  fineness, 
£3  175.  10^6?.  per  oz.  The  Mint  price  of  gold  means 
the  number  of  coins  into  which  a  given  quantity  of 
gold  bullion  is  divided  by  coining  it.  The  Mint  price 
of  1  oz.  of  gold  bullion  is  £3  17^.  lO^d. ;  and  that 
of  40  lbs.  is  £1869.  (See  Mr.  Seyd's  work,  BuUion 
and  For.  Exchanges,  Part  i.  Chap.  xiii.). 

28.  Now  here  we  are  met,  at  the  very  outset,  by 
a  difiiculty  respecting  the  value  of  the  coin  and  the 
bullion.  It  is  clear  that  there  is  an  advantage  in 
having  coin  circulating  instead  of  bullion,  a  value-in- 
use,  or  U,  at  least  in  the  estimation  of  the  nation 
which  uses  coin;  it  is  clear  also  that  there  is  a  cer- 
tain expense  or  difficulty  of  production,  D,  in  coining. 
Coin  in  short  is  a  manufactured  article,  and  must 
on  that  account  be  of  a  greater  value  than  the  raw 
material,  bullion,  of  which  it  is  made.  Why  then  is 
it  so  often  said  that  coins  can  be  of  no  greater  value 
than  the  bullion  which  they  contain,  or,  in  Mr.  Mac- 
leod's  words,  that  "  any  quantity  of  metal  in  the  form 
of  Bullion  must  be  exactly  of  the  same  value  as  the 
same  quantity  of  metal  in  the  form  of  coin"  ?     The 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


390 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§  96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


difficulty  may  be  cleared  up  as  follows:  To  whom 
are  coins  more  valuable  than  the  bullion  which  they 
contain?     To  the  nation  at  large,  or  to  those  indi- 


viduals in  it,  who  make  use   of  the 


comage. 


The 


service  rendered  by  coinage  consists  in  ascertaining 
the  weight  and  fineness  of  the  bullion,  instead  of 
leaving  this  to  be  done  by  individual  buyers  and 
sellers  in  each  case  of  exchange.  The  value  of  the 
coin  consists  in  the  value  of  the  bullion  which  it  con- 
tains ;  the  value  of  its  being  in  the  form  of  coin,  and 
not  of  bullion,  consists  in  the  ascertainment  of  that 
value.  If  then  we  can  separate  the  ascertainment  of 
the  value  from  the  value  itself,  we  can  ascertain  the 
difference  between  the  value  of  the  bullion  and  that 
of  the  same  quantity  of  bullion  coined.  This  can  be 
and  is  done  by  making  a  charge  for  coining. 

29.  When  the  state  coins  bullion  brought  to  it 
by  individuals,  three  courses  are  open  to  it.  It  may 
either  coin  the  Avhole  of  the  bullion  at  its  previously 
fixed  standard,  and  return  it  to  the  bringer  free  of 
charge ;  receiving  for  instance  an  oz.  of  gold,  it  may 
return  in  coin  £3  175.  lO^d.;  or  it  may  coin  some 
of  it  into  a  less  sum  than  £S  17s.  lO^d.,  but  preserve 
the  same  standard,  while  it  retains  a  part  of  the  bul- 
lion as  its  own  remuneration ;  or  thirdly,  it  may  coin 
some  of  it  into  the  full  nominal  amount  of  £3 175.  lO^d., 
and  return  it  to  the  bringers,  keeping  as  before  the 
other  part  for  itself.  In  the  first  case,  the  state 
takes  upon  itself  the  whole  expense  of  coinage;  in 
the  second,  it  levies  a  mintage  or  seignorage ;  in  the 
third,  it  not  only  levies  a  ^mintage  or  seignorage  but 
at  the  same  time  debases  the  coin.  Here  we  see  the 
necessity  of  distinguishing,  as  was  done  in  the  pre- 
cedin 


g  par 


,  between  the  value  of  the  form  of  coinage 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


391 


and  the  value  of  the  bulKon  in  the  coin,  between  the 
value  of  the  ascertained  bullion  and  the  value  af  the 
ascertainment  itself.  The  value  of  the  form  of  coin- 
age, of  the  ascertainment  itself,  is  a  real  value  added 
to  the  bullion;  it  exists  as  value,  and  must  belong 
to  somebody  or  other,  somewhat  in  the  same  way  as 
rent  must;  the  state,  who  confers  it,  may  retain  it 
by  levying  a  mintage  or  seignorage,  not  exceeding 
the  expense  of  coinage,  or  may  give  it  away  to  the 
holders  of  the  bullion  by  coining  gratis.  But  it  is 
a  value  which  cannot  be  deducted  from  the  bullion 
itself,  by  giving  a  less  quantity  of  bullion  in  the  form 
of  a  nominally  standard  coin,  without  eo  ipso  de- 
stroying the  very  value  which  it  is  professed  to  con- 
fer, that  of  ascertaining  the  quantity  and  fineness  of 
the  bullion.  There  is  thus  a  reconciliation  of  the 
apparent  contradiction,  that  coinage  adds  a  value  to 
the  bullion  coined,  and  yet  that  the  value  of  the  coin 
is  no  greater  than  that  of  the  bullion.  The  one  is 
the  thing  itself,  the  other  is  the  thing  known.  A 
coin  of  122  grains  of  gold  is  not  of  equal  value  to 
123  grains    uncoined,  notwithstanding  that   1 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


grain 


may  be  the  expense  of  coining ;  for  when  you  come 
to  compare  them  you  must  ascertain  the  123  grains 
as  well  as  the  ascertamed  coin  of  122.  The  value- 
in-use  added  to  the  bullion  by  coining  is  the  advant- 
age of  being  able  to  make  purchases  with  it  readily, 
and  not  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  purchase 
more  goods.  The  purchase  money  of  this  value-in- 
use  of  coin,  that  is,  the  exchange  value  of  the  ad- 
vantage it  secures,  is  therefore  separable  from  the 
coin  itself,  and  is  at  the  disposal  of  its  creators,  that 
is,  of  the  state. 

30.  The  people  of  any  country  bear  in  any  case 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


of  money. 


392  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      the  expeiisG  of  coining ;  for,  if  the  government  makes 
—         no   charo;e   for  coinino:,   it  comes   out  of  the  taxes; 

§  96.  *  ... 

Statical  logic  whilc,  if  B.  scignorage  or  mintage  is  levied,  it  falls 
first  upon  those  who  take  the  bullion  and  receive  the 
coin  from  the  mint,  and  secondly  upon  those  who 
purchase  it  of  them  by  commodities  or  services.  For 
the  use  of  a  coinage,  and  of  other  kinds  of  currency 
founded  on  the  coinage,  all  those  who  use  it  pay; 
which  obviously  includes  all  classes  in  the  country. 
There  is  a  real  exchange  value  added  to  the  bullion 
by  coining  it,  and  a  real  price  paid  for  the  advantage 
of  coin.  At  the  same  time,  it  never  purchases  more 
commodities  than  bullion  would  do ;  not  beyond  the 
country,  for  there  it  has  no  currency ;  not  within  it, 
for  there  bullion  has  none. 

3  I .  While  however  the  two  methods  of  coining 
are  indifferent  with  regard  to  the  persons  on  whom 
the  cost  ultimately  falls,  they  are  not  so  in  another 
respect.  Gratis  coining  gives  back  coin  equal  in  the 
holders'  hands  to  bullion,  neither  more  nor  less ;  for 
they  pay  no  more  and  no  less  for  the  coins  than  the 
bullion  contained  in  them;  the  coins  can  be  pur- 
chased for  the  bullion  itself,  and  consequently  can 
be  sold  again  for  the  same  price  as  the  bullion. 
Mintao-e  on  the  other  hand  distributes  that  value  of 
the  coined  money  which  is  over  and  above  the  value 
of  the  bullion,  that  is,  the  price  of  coining  it,  over 
every  batch  of  coined  money,  so  that  the  holders 
must  have  given  more  than  the  mere  bullion  for  it, 
and  consequently  will  require  more  than  the  mere 
value  of  the  bullion  if  they  part  with  it.  The  con- 
sequence of  this  would  be  felt  in  case  of  a  drain  or 
scarcity  of  bullion;  for,  under  a  sj^stem  of  gratis 
coining,   coin  would  be   as   readily  sent   abroad  as 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


393 


bullion,  being  of  no  more  cost  to  the  holders,  and 
the  country  would  be  coining  money  at  the  public 
expense  only  to  have  it  sent  abroad  at  bullion  prices. 
The  charge  of  mintage,  then,  is  a  means  of  keeping 
the  coin  in  the  country,  for  the  use  of  which  it  is 
intended. 

32.  Comparing  coin  and  bullion,  the  true  price 
of  one  is  just  the  same  as  that  of  the  other.  This 
is  called  the  mint  price  of  bullion,  being  that  quan- 
tity of  coin  into  which  a  given  piece  of  bullion  of  a 
certain  weight  and  fineness  is  divided.  The  market 
price  of  bullion,  paid  in  coin,  can  never  rise  above 
the  mint  price  without  showing  that  the  coin  is  de- 
preciated. The  market  price  of  bullion  may  rise  to 
any  amount  from  scarcity,  difficulty  of  carriage,  and 
so  on ;  but,  when  this  price  is  paid  in  coin,  either  the 
coin  is  depreciated,  or  the  coin  also  rises  in  value 
along  with  the  bullion  from  which  it  is  coined.  The 
market  price  of  bullion  is  a  commodity  price,  though 
estimated  in  coin,  and  carries  with  it  the  commodity 
price  of  the  pieces  it  is  coined  into ;  that  is,  in  case 
of  a  rise,  more  commodities  or  services  must  be  given 
for  it,  and  more  and  equally  more  commodities  or 
services  must  be  given  for  them,  unless  the  coins  are 
depreciated.  The  purchasing  power,  or  value  in 
commodities,  of  both  bullion  and  coin  is  increased. 

^;^.  Now  here  again  arises  an  apparent  contradic- 
tion. If  more  coins  are  given  for  bullion  than  those 
into  which  it  is  coined,  this  shows  depreciation  of  the 
coinage.  But  how  can  the  market  price  of  bullion, 
as  a  commodity  price,  vary  in  any  case  from  the  mint 
price  without  being  expressed  in  a  larger  or  smaller 
number  of  coins,  that  is,  without,  in  any  actual  ex- 
change, requiring  a  different  number  of  coins  to  be 


IJOOK  II. 

Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


394 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


given  for  it  from  that  which  constitutes  its  mint 
price?  The  answer  must  be  given  by  referring  to 
the  distinction  between  money  as  the  medium  and 
money  as  the  measure  of  exchange.  The  rise  in  the 
market  price  of  bullion  is  a  rise  in  its  purchasing 
power,  not  its  purchasing  power  over  coin  but  over 
goods ;  accordingly  it  is  estimated  in  or  measured  by 
coin,  but  not  exchanged  for  coin;  the  coin  rises  also, 
and  equally,  in  purchasing  power.  The  bullion  can 
only  be  bought  by  credit  or  paper  currency,  that  is, 
promises  to  pay  coin  at  a  future  date,  or,  if  on  de- 
mand, in  the  certainty  of  the  demand  not  being 
made  on  more  than  a  small  proportion  of  the  pro- 
mises. And  these  promises  will  be  for  a  higher  sum 
than  the  mint  price  of  the  bullion.  Thus  the  coin, 
if  undepreciated,  becomes  a  commodity  purchased  by 
currency,  and  that  currency  a  paper  one;  just  as 
bullion  becomes  a  commodity  purchased  by  coin, 
when  coin  is  established  as  currency;  for  there 
cannot  be  two  currencies,  but,  whatever  is  taken  as 
currency,  everything  else  becomes  a  coimnodity  pur- 
chasable by  it.  The  effect  therefore  of  the  rise  in 
the  market  price  of  bullion,  supposing  there  to  be 
no  depreciation  of  the  coin,  is  to  make  paper  become 
currency,  and  to  throw  the  corresponding  fall  in  the 
values  of  other  things  than  bullion  and  coin  upon  the 
paper,  as  their  representative  for  the  time  being.  But 
the  paper  currency,  in  which  the  payments  for  the 
bullion  are  made,  cannot  be  intended  to  be,  or  be 
capable  of  being,  immediately  converted  into  coin; 
for  otherwise  the  transaction  would  defeat  itself;  no 
one  would  give,  for  coin  or  bullion,  notes  which  he 
might  be  immediately  called  upon  to  pay  with  the 
same  amount  of  coin  or  buUion  that  he  bought  with 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEiN'CES. 


395 


them.  When,  therefore,  the  market  price  of  bullion, 
in  an  undepreciated  condition  of  coin  and  of  notes, 
rises  above  the  mint  price,  this  additional  price  is 
advanced  upon  credit,  and  paid  in  some  form  of  pri- 
vate credit  currency,  or,  if  in  notes,  m  notes  which, 
it  is  known,  only  a  small  proportion  of  coin  need  be 
reserved  to  meet.  The  fall  in  the  value  of  paper,  in 
the  case  supposed,  does  not  arise  from  insecurity  or 
over  issue  of  the  paper,  but  from  the  fall  of  the  com- 
modities which  are  now  contrasted  with  bullion  and 
coin.  If  the  fall  in  its  value  were  permanent,  con- 
tinuing beyond  the  period  of  the  exceptionally  high 
value  of  coin  and  bullion,  its  diminished  value  would 
be  a  depreciation  attaching  to  the  paper  itself,  and 
arising  from  over  issue  or  insecurity  of  credit.  Coin 
conformed  in  value  to  bullion  is  the  ultimate  or  per- 
manent measure  and  purchaser  of  all  other  commo- 
dities; it  is  to  the  proportions  between  these  two, 
coin  on  the  one  side,  everything  else  on  the  other, 
that  all  particular  values  are  referred  as  their  stand- 
ard. Fluctuations  in  these  proportions,  arising  in 
one  limb  of  it,  coin,  can  be  measured  by  the  rise  or 
fall  in  the  value  of  paper,  if  this  is  otherwise  un- 
altered. But  a  permanent  change  in  the  value  of 
paper  could  not  be  owing  to  temporary  fluctuations 
in  the  value  of  bullion  or  coin. 

34.  We  are  thus  launched  into  the  question  of 
notes,  the  paper  or  public  credit  currency  of  a  nation. 
Notes  are  the  price  of  coin,  as  coin  of  bullion.  They 
are  therefore  liable  to  depreciation  from  a  double 
source;  they  may  be  a  substitute  for  a  depreciated 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


coinage,   and    they 
that  coinao:e  itself. 


may  be    depreciated   as   against 
Depreciation  arising  in  the  notes 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  mouey. 


themselves  may  be  caused  either  by  over  issue,   if 


396 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


they  are  inconvertible,  or  by  insecurity  of  credit  in 
the  issuers,  if  they  are  convertible.  Inconvertible 
notes  are  properly  called  paper  money;  when  con- 
vertible on  demand  into  coin,  they  are  not  paper 
money  but  merely  convenient  substitutes  for  coin; 
and  their  legal  convertibility  is  a  perfect  safeguard 
against  an  over  issue.  So  far  as  the  price  of  cur- 
rency is  concerned,  convertible  notes  cannot  be  over 
issued,  because  no  one  is  bound  to  take  them  in  pay- 
ment instead  of  coin.  And  here  is  one  of  the  great 
fallacies  of  the  so-called  "currency  theory."  Because 
advances  are  often  made  in  notes,  and  advances  may 
easily  be  excessive  when  compared  to  the  means  of 
repaying  them  out  of  the  returns  to  future  industry, 
it  was  argued  that  notes  might  be  issued  in  excess, 
although  convertible  on  demand  into  coin.  The  ac- 
cident, of  advances,  their  being  sometimes  made  in 
notes,  and  not  their  substance,  their  being  an  advance 
upon  credit,  was  fixed  upon  as  the  essential  part  of 
these  transactions,  and  the  attempt  Avas  made  to  limit 
the  advances  by  limiting  the  issue  of  notes ;  thus  not 
only  not  limiting  in  all  cases  the  advances,  but  trans- 
ferring the  notion  of  over  issue  from  the  advances 
upon  credit  to  the  issue  of  notes  against  coin,  turn- 
ing a  fact  belonging  to  the  money  market  into  a 
conception  concerning  the  price  of  currency,  and  con- 
founding one  of  the  most  fundamental  distinctions  in 
monetary  science.  In  support  of  the  view  here  main- 
tained it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the  names  of 
Mr.  Tooke  and  Mr.  FuUarton,  its  original  propounders. 
Reference  will  again  be  made  to  this  point  when  treat- 
ing of  the  money  market. 

;^^.  Coin  itself  can  only  be  depreciated  by  being 
debased,  not  by  being  coined  in  excessive  amount,  for 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


397 


Rook  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 


all  such  coin,  not  required  in  the  country,  will  bear 
its  full  bullion  value  in  foreign  transactions.  Notes 
may  be  depreciated  either  from  excessive  issues,  if  statfcaiiosic 
inconvertible,  or,  if  convertible  legally,  by  insecurity 
of  credit  in  the  issuers ;  while,  if  they  are  not  only 
legally  but  also  de  facto  convertible,  no  depreciation 
can  arise  in  them  in  the  first  instance.  But  a  depre- 
ciation arising  in  either  branch  of  the  currency,  either 
in  coin  or  notes,  may  extend  to  the  whole  currency ; 
for  notes  will  represent  the  coin  depreciated  by  de- 
basement, and  coin  will  be  driven  out  of  circulation 
by  the  use  of  a  depreciated  note  currency,  when  the 
depreciation  is  caused  by  over  issue.  "  In  a  perfect 
state  of  the  coin,  provided  the  exportation  and  melt- 
ing of  it  be  allowed,  there  cannot,  it  is  evident,  be  an 
excess  in  the  market  price  above  the  mint  price  of 
the  metal,  as  measured  in  coin.  It  is  possible,  in 
such  a  case,  that  the  coin  may,  even  without  a  seig- 
norage,  be  more  valuable  than  the  bullion ;  but  it  is 
hardly  conceivable  that  it  should  be  less  valuable: 
if,  therefore,  in  a  perfect  state  of  the  coin,  there  be 
in  general  circulation  bank  notes  which,  by  law  or 
custom,  pass  current  in  all  transactions;  and  if,  un- 
der these  circumstances,  the  market  price  should  be 
above  the  mint  price  of  gold — the  whole  of  the  dif- 
ference would  constitute  the  exact  measure  of  the 
depreciation  of  the  paper."  Tooke,  Hist,  of  Prices, 
Vol.  i.  p.  123.  And  for  this  reason,  that  the  bullion 
would  be  paid  for  in  those  notes  which  pass  current 
in  all  transactions ;  we  should  have  the  same  case  as 
was  described  in  par.  23-)  except  that  the  depreciation 
would  be  permanent  and  arising  in  the  notes  them- 
selves. They  would  become  the  real  currency  of  the 
country,   the   coin  becoming  a  commodity  like  bul- 


398  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  IT.      Hon,  and  like  bullion  profitable  only  for  melting  and 


Ch.  i\ 


§96. 


exportation.    Wherever,  therefore,  the  issues  of  notes 
statfcaiiogic    are  unlimited,  and  yet  the  notes  are  inconvertible, 

of  money.  ''  i  •  i        i  i 

they  will  drive  out  by  degrees  all  the  com,  whether  de- 
preciated or  not,  causing  it  to  be  exported  or  melted, 
or  consignins:  it  to  secret  hoards  ao-ainst  a  convulsion. 
26.  In  the  third  kind  of  currency,  private  credit 
currency,  it  will  be  enough  to  take  notice  of  bills  of 
exchange.  Foreign  bills  of  exchano-e  are  between 
nations  what  the  private  credit  currency  is  to  the 
nation  itself  In  both  cases  one  part  of  the  currency 
liquidates  and  pays  for  another  part.  What  the  Clear- 
ino"  House  is  between  the  customers  of  bankers  that 
the  purchase,  sale,  and  transmission,  of  bills  of  ex- 
chano-e is  between  nations.  Those  transactions  which 
are  settled  by  means  of  bills  are  virtually  settled  by 
an  interchange  of  commodities.  (See  §  95.  74-78). 
It  is  only  the  balance  of  these  transactions,  the  re- 
mainder due  to  one  country  by  another,  that  must 
be  settled  by  the  transmission  of  bullion;  and  this 
is  only  sent  when,  for  any  reason,  it  has  become  un- 
profitable to  send  commodities  which  may  be  paid 
for  by  bills.  The  private  credit  currency  of  one  na- 
tion also  may  be  depreciated  in  respect  to  that  of 
another,  the  bills  of  one  nation  worth  less  or  more 
ready  money  than  those  of  another,  just  as  the  credit 
of  its  merchants  is  worse  or  better ;  but  there  is  no 
standard,  nor  any  public  means  of  ascertaining  this, 
except  the  actual  discount  of  the  bills.  This  being 
premised,  we  come  upon  a  new  class  of  variations  in 
the  value  of  the  coin  currencies  of  different  countries; 
variations  which  are  introduced  into  the  exchange 
of  those  currencies  in  consequence  of  fluctuations  in 
the  "-.ransactions  carried  on  between  the  countries  by 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


399 


means  of  their  private  credit  currencies.  The  varia- 
tions arising  from  this  cause,  if  we  suppose  the  cur- 
rencies otherwise  in  an  undepreciated  condition,  may 
be  compared  to  the  oscillations  of  market  price  about 
the  natural  price  of  commodities,  the  undepreciated 
condition  of  currencies  being  analogous  to  commodi- 
ties being  at  their  natural  price. 

37.  It  is  only  between  the  currencies  of  different 
nations  that  the  variations  in  question  can  take  place. 
When  two  places  have  the  same  currency,  and  there 
is  free  and  ready  transmission  of  currencies  between 
them,  no  room  is  left  for  supply  and  demand  of  cur- 
rency to  operate ;  debts  are  paid  at  once  on  becoming 
due.  But  between  nations  debts  may  in  a  certain 
manner  accumulate,  by  the  total  balance  of  indebted- 
ness of  one  country  to  the  other  increasing,  without 
being  discharged  by  payment  of  specie,  notwithstand- 
ing that  particular  debts  are  paid  both  ways  by  bills 
from  time  to  time.  Between  the  arising  of  a  balance 
of  indebtedness  and  the  remission  of  specie,  depre- 
ciation of  one  currency  relatively  to  the  other  will 
take  place ;  and  this  is  the  well-known  phenomenon 
of  fluctuation  in  the  rate  of  exchange  up  to  specie 
point.  These  variations  arise,  therefore,  in  the  goods 
market,  and  to  trace  their  causes  belongs  to  that 
branch  of  the  enquiry.  But  their  effects  upon  the 
price  of  currency  in  currency  must  be  here  stated. 
When  the  rate  of  exchange  between  two  nations  is 
either  above  or  below  par,  this  is  an  evidence  that 
one  of  them  is  more  largely  indebted  to  the  other, 
than  the  other  to  it,  upon  the  transactions  of  all  kinds 
that  have  taken  place  between  them.  The  balance 
is  due  in  coin  or  bullion,  and  the  exchange  is  said 
to  be  unfavourable  to  the  country  which  owes  the 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


of  money. 


400  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Bookti.      balance,   and  favourable  to  the   other.     There  is  a 

Ch.  IV.  ' 

— ^         supply  of  coin  or  bullion,  or,  since  we  may  suppose 
Statical  logic    tlic  currencics  undepreciated  from  other  causes,  of 

or  monev.  i  ' 

money  generally,  exjDected  to  be  imported  into  the  one 
country,  and  expected  to  be  exported  from  the  other. 

38.  The  metallic  par  of  exchange  is  that  quantity 
of  coin  of  the  two  currencies  which  is  exactly  equal 
in  bullion  value.  Between  England  and  France  this 
par  is  25*22J  francs=20  shillings;  and  15  lOnr  shil- 
lings =20  francs.  The  effect  of  an  expected  supply 
of  francs,  or  their  equivalent,  in  England  is,  that  the 
price  of  francs  in  England,  or  estimated  in  English 
money,  falls  below  this  par;  20  francs  at  an  exchange 
of  25 "30  becomes  worth  only  155.  9^d.,  instead  of 
155.  lOfV.  Or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  205.  becomes 
worth  25'30  francs  instead  of  25*22^  francs.  By  the 
same  rule,  when  exchano;e  is  unfavourable  to  Enoc- 
laud,  when  there  is  a  great  supply  of  English  money 
expected  in  France,  the  20  francs  become  worth  more 
than  155.  lOi^,  and  the  20  shillings  less  than  25'22| 
francs.  These  figures  are  taken  from  Mr.  Seyd's  work, 
Bullion  and  Foreign  Exchanges,  Part  ii.  Ch.  i.  Pars  of 
Exchange.  The  state  of  things  now  described  has  of 
course  no  effect  upon  the  price  of  English  money  es- 
timated in  English,  or  of  French  estimated  in  French. 

39.  To  turn  now  to  the  effect  upon  the  private 
credit  currencies  of  the  two  countries,  the  bills  them- 
selves. Up  to  a  certain  point  of  indebtedness,  no 
specie  will  actually  pass  from  one  country  to  the 
other  in  payment  of  the  balance.  It  is  clear  that 
none  would  pass  if  the  exchanges  were  at  par ;  and 
the  exchanges  may  vary  also  from  par,  to  a  certain 
point,  without  causing  the  transmission  of  specie. 
But  in  this  case  the  difference  or  balance  of  indebt- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


401 


edness  produces  an  effect  upon  the  currencies  ;  the 
bills  which  balance  each  other  do  so  only  by  means 
of  a  greater  value  in  bills  of  the  one  country  being 
the  equivalent  for  a  less  value  in  bills  of  the  other, 
that  is,  by  means  of  the  same  bill  purchasing  a  larger 
amount  of  currency  in  the  one  country,  and  a  less 
amount  in  the  other.  The  greater  or  less  amount  of 
indebtedness  has  its  cause  in  the  general  transactions 
of  trade  and  of  the  money  market  between  the  two 
countries.  Until  specie  point  is  reached  either  way, 
in  the  fluctuations  of  the  rate  of  exchange,  this  greater 
or  less  indebtedness  is  accompanied  by  a  higher  price, 
in  currency,  commanded  by  the  bills  of  the  least  in- 
debted country  in  the  other,  and  a  lower  price,  in 
currency,  commanded  by  the  bills  of  the  most  in- 
debted country.  The  country  which  owes  most  gives 
most  for  the  other's  bills,  and  that  which  owes  least 
gives  least.  Nor  is  this  a  merely  nominal  advantage. 
"  When  the  fluctuations  were  determined,"  says  Mr. 
Goschen,  referring  to  a  case  which  he  had  previously 
described,  "  simply  by  the  balance  of  trade,  (within 
the  limits  of  the  specie  point  upon  either  extreme), 
the  purchaser,  when  he  bought  cheap — that  is  to  say, 
Avhen  he  obtained  a  greater  sum  than  usual  in  foreign 
coin  for  his  own  money — secured  an  actual  advant- 
age ;  this  greater  sum  of  foreign  coin  had  an  actual 
greater  purchasing  power."  Theory  of  the  Foreign 
Exchanges,  p.  65,  3rd  ed.  But  this,  he  shows,  is 
only  true  where  the  cheaj)ness  of  the  bills  is  not 
caused  by  the  depreciation  of  the  foreign  currency. 
On  the  contrary  it  is  itself  the  cause  of  its  temporary 
depreciation. 

40.  Foreign  transactions  of  all  kinds  are  settled 
in   the   first  instance  bv  means  of  bills.      For   con- 


Rook  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


VOL.  II. 


402 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


ciseness  we  may,  with  Mr.  Goschen,  speak  of  those 
persons  who  owe  and  those  who  are  owed  sums  of 
money,  m  any  two  comitries,  as  the  importers  and 
the  exporters.  The  importers  of  one  country,  then, 
owe  money  to  the  exporters  of  the  other.  Suppose 
these  countries  to  be  England  and  France,  and  let  us 
use  letters  to  denote  the  men,  e.  g.  F.I.  for  French 
Importer,  E.E.  for  English  Exporter,  and  F.B,,  E.B., 
for  the  Brokers  who  buy  and  sell  the  bills.  We  have 
then,  in  the  first  instance,  the  following  scheme : 


T.E. 


jE.i:. 


F.I. 


JS.T. 


The  first  movement  is  that  E.L  accepts  a  bill  drawn 
by  F.E.  for  goods.  F.E.  discounts  it  with  a  broker 
and  receives  payment.  The  broker  sells  it  to  F.L, 
who  transmits  it  to  E.E.,  to  whom  he  owes  money. 
E.E.  discounts  it  with  E.B.  And  E.B.  presents  it 
for  payment  to  its  acceptor  E.L  Thus  a  single  bill, 
an  English  bill,  settles  both  transactions,  that  be- 
tween F.L  and  E.E.  as  well  as  that  between  E.L 
and  F.E. 

41.  But  F.L  may  settle  his  account  with  E.E. 
in  the  same  way  as  E.L  did,  namely,  by  originally 
accepting  a  bill  drawn  by  E.E.     Thus : 


j:j^. 


:F.r. 


je.n. 


aeoeT'''' 


MB. 


JS.T. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


403 


This  bill  also  settles  both  transactions.  That  is  to 
say,  bills  on  England  settle  transactions,  or  debts, 
to  an  equal  amount  in  both  countries.  So  also  bills 
on  France.  If  therefore  the  bills  upon  France  and 
the  bills  upon  England  were  accepted  to  an  equal 
amount,  exchange  would  be  at  par,  and  the  bills 
would  exactly  balance  each  other. 

42.  There  cannot  be  more  bills  upon  England 
bought  by  F.Is  than  are  accepted  by  E.Is.  Nor 
more  bills  upon  France  bought  by  E.Is  than  are  ac- 
cepted by  F.Is. 

43.  But  there  may  be  more  bills  upon  England 
accepted  by  E.Is  than  are  bought  by  F.Is;  and  fewer 
bills  upon  France  accepted  by  F.Is  than  bills  upon 
England  accepted  by  E.Is. 

Or  there  may  be  more  bills  upon  France  accepted 
by  F.Is  than  are  bought  by  E.Is ;  and  fewer  bills  upon 
England  accepted  by  E.Is  than  bills  upon  France 
accepted  by  F.Is. 

44.  In  the  former  case  all  the  bills  upon  France 
will  find  a  ready  sale ;  in  the  latter  case,  all  the  bills 
upon  England ;  for  a  certain  number  of  the  bills  ac- 
cepted will  balance  each  other,  leaving  those  beyond 
that  number  without  purchasers. 

45.  In  the  former  case,  bills  upon  England  will 
be  at  a  discount,  more  being  supplied  than  are  de- 
manded, and  will  fall  below  their  nominal  or  par 
amount,  in  France ;  while  bills  upon  France  will  be  at 
a  premium  in  England,  above  their  nominal  amount 
or  par,  more  being  demanded  than  are  supplied.  It 
will  be  enough  to  consider  this  case,  an  exchange 
unfavourable  to  England,  without '  taking  the  oppo- 
site. 

46.  In   an   exchange    unfavourable  to  England, 


Book  H. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


404 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


then,  that  is  to  say,  when  bills  upon  England  have 
been  accepted  to  a  larger  amount  than  bills  upon 
France,  the  F.E.  will  get  less  from  the  F.B.  for  his 
English  acceptance;  he  will  be  paid  in  a  depreciated 
currency,  the  English  bill,  which  is  worth  less  than 
par  in  French  money;  but  the  F.I.  who  buys  this 
bill  will  give  less  for  it,  and  thus  discharge  his  debt 
to  the  E.E.  with  less  money.  The  E.E.  again  will 
find  the  bill  which  he  receives  at  a  discount,  when 
he  sells  it  to  the  E.B.  But  the  E.B.  will  get  the  full 
amount  from  the  E.I.  who  was  the  original  acceptor. 
In  other  words,  both  English  and  French  goods  will 
be  worth  less  in  French  money  than  in  English ; 
prices  will  have  fallen,  money  risen  in  value,  in 
France,  as  compared  to  England.  But  the  advantage 
of  this  will  be  reaped  by  the  French  Importer ;  it 
will  be  a  disadvantage  to  the  French  Exporter,  as 
well  as  to  the  English  Importer  and  Exporter.  The 
advantage  is  reaped  by  the  importers  of  that  country 
the  exports  of  which  exceed  the  imports,  and  which 
has  consequently  more  to  receive  than  to  pay,  so  far 
at  least  as  the  bills  upon  the  other  country  are  con- 
cerned. 

47.  But  at  the  same  time  a  premium  will  be  paid 
for  bills  upon  France  in  England,  since  there  are 
fewer  accepted  than  there  are  E.Is  to  bid,  fewer  than 
there  are  bills  upon  England  accepted  by  E.Is.  E.Es 
who  hold  bills  upon  France  will  get  more,  and  E.Is 
will  give  more,  for  them.  The  F.Es  to  whom  these 
bills  are  transmitted  also  find  them  at  a  premium, 
that  is,  they  receive  more  for  them,  while  they  cost 
no  more  to  the  F.Is  by  whom  they  are  finally  paid 
than  their  nominal  amount.  So  far,  therefore,  as 
bills  upon  the  country  to  which  the  exchange  is  fa- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


405 


vourable  are  concernecl,  the  exporters  of  both  coun- 
tries reap  an  advantage  ;  and  on  the  whole  of  the 
bills,  upon  both  countries,  taken  together,  it  is  the 
importers  of  the  country  to  which  the  exchange  is 
iniflxvourable  who  bear  the  loss  of  the  depreciation 
of  the  currency  of  that  country.  The  depreciation 
of  the  currency  of  the  country  which  is  most  in- 
debted is  a  real  loss :  for  there  is  a  lessenino-  of  its 
purchasing  power  compared  to  the  currency  of  the 
other  country ;  and  this  was  the  test  given  above  of 
depreciation,  namely,  relative  power  of  commanding 
commodities  other  than  money. 

48.  Third  countries  have  been  hitherto  abstracted 
from  in  this  enquiry.  If,  for  instance,  England, 
though  under  a  balance  of  indebtedness  to  France, 
had  a  balance  of  debts  to  receive  from  a  third  coun- 
try, say  Holland,  bills  upon  Holland  might  be  sent 
to  France  in  discharge  of  England's  balance,  and  thus 
the  depreciation  of  English  currency  avoided.  But 
this  makes  no  difference  in  the  principle  which  go- 
verns the  action  of  international  transactions  ujDon 
the  price  of  the  different  national  currencies  estimated 
in  each  other.  Foreign  exchano-es,  then,  belonof  to 
all  the  three  functions  of  money,  by  producing  on 
the  one  hand  these  fluctuations  in  currencies,  and  on 
the  other  by  depending  on  influences  not  only  of 
trade  in  goods,  but  also  credit  or  the  money  market, 
in  which  the  price  of  money  is  interest.  This  latter 
dependence  will  be  made  more  clear  as  we  proceed. 
The  analysis  of  any  complex  and  concrete  set  of 
phenomena,  such  as  the  Foreign  Exchanges,  into  the 
three  functions  of  money,  which  combine  to  produce 
them,  is  the  application  of  the  logic,  or  the  logical 
treatment  of  the  phenomena  in  question. 


Book  U. 
Cii.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


406 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 


49.  But  now  the  question  occurs,  to  what  extent 
will  this  proceed ;  to  what  extent  will  the  balance  of  in- 
staticai  iogic  debtediiess  between  the  two  countries  be  accompanied 
™°"^y-  i^y  depreciation  of  the  currency  of  the  country  which 
is  most  indebted  ?  Accompanied,  not  discharged, 
by  it,  because,  up  to  the  point  in  question,  the  debt 
to  be  discharged  is  accumulating,  being  represented 
by  the  bills,  on  the  country  most  mdebted,  which 
from  time  to  time  are  unable  to  find  purchasers  in 
the  country  least  indebted.  It  is  the  delay  in  dis- 
charging it  which  is  purchased  by,  or  finds  its  quid 
pro  quo  in,  the  depreciation.  The  answer  is  clear ;  it 
will  proceed  until  specie  is  exported  in  discharge  of 
the  balance.  If  we  suppose  the  balance  of  indebted- 
ness to  continue  increasing,  a  point  will  be  reached 
when  so  much  must  be  paid  that  the  bills  represent- 
ing it  can  no  longer  be  retained,  but  are  presented 
for  actual  payment.  But  what  will  be  the  cause  de- 
termining this  effect  to  take  place;  what  efiiciently 
determines  specie  point?  The  answer  is — the  rise 
of  premium  on  Foreign  Bills  to  such  a  rate  that  the 
premium  alone  is  greater  than  the  cost  of  transmit- 
ting specie ;  for  no  one  will  give  a  greater  sum  for 
a  bill  to  discharge  his  debt  than  that  which  is  equal 
to  the  debt  itself  together  with  the  cost  of  transmit- 
ting coin  to  pay  it.  The  same  cause  which  origin- 
ally produced  the  effect  of  depreciation  in  the  com- 
parative price  of  the  currency,  namely,  the  cost  of 
transmitting  specie,  now  operates  in  preventing  fur- 
ther depreciation.  And  so  long  as  the  balance  of 
indebtedness  keeps  the  rate  of  exchange  above  specie 
point,  so  long  the  indebted  country  must  keep  ex- 
porting specie  to  meet  that  part  of  the  balance  which 
does  not  fall  upon  the  currency. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


407 


50.  As  to  what  the  specie  points  are,  Mr.  Seyd 


a 


it 


says  (Bullion  and  For.  Exchanges,  p.  394)  "we  may 
assume  as  a  general  rule, 

That  when  the  French  Exchange  is  at  25'10^ 
pays  to  send  Gold  from  England  to  France; 

And,  when  the  Exchange  is  at  25*35,  it  pays  to 
send  Gold  from  France  to  Eno^land. 


The  Mint  Par  beinsf  taken  at 


25-221 


we  have 


thus  a  margin  of  1 2^  centimes,  or  J  per  cent,  either 
way,  and  25  centimes,  or  1  per  cent,  between  the  two 
extreme  points. 

The  ^  per  cent,  either  way  being  absorbed  by 
charges  of  Brokerage,  transporting,  realisation,  and 
incidental  costs,  constitutes  a  natural  bar  to  the  more 
frequent  interchange  of  shipments  of  bullion  between 
the  two  countries." 

5 1 .  When  bullion  is  at  last  exported  in  payment 
of  the  balance  of  indebtedness,  the  further  deprecia- 
tion of  the  currency  of  the  indebted  country  ceases. 
It  is  only  between  the  departure  from  par  and  the 
reaching  of  specie  point,  and  to  the  extent  which 
that  interval  represents,  that  depreciation  takes  place. 
But  what  is  the  effect  of  the  demand  for  bullion  on 
the  currency  of  the  country  where  it  is  demanded  for 
export  ?  The  price  of  bullion  will  certainly  rise,  but 
this  will  not  necessarily  produce  any  alteration  in 
the  relative  price  of  the  different  parts  of  the  public 
currency  of  the  country,  coin  and  notes.  If  coin  is 
kept  entirely  free  from  debasement,  and  notes  are 
kept  completely  de  facto  convertible,  there  can  be 
no  difference  between  them  and  bullion,  but  they  will 
remain  as  before;  coin  being  just  so  much  dearer  to 
export  than  bullion  by  the  charge  for  coinage,  or,  as 
in  England,  by  delays  and  expenses  which  are  equi- 


BooK  n. 

Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


408 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


valent,  and  so  much  cheaper  as,  its  fineness  bemg 
already  ascertained,  the  trouble  of  assaying  the  bul- 
lion is  saved.     Whence  then  the  rise  in  bullion? 

52.  In  the  first  place  it  should  be  remarked,  that, 
in  many  cases,  what  is  called  the  rise  in  price  of 
bullion  is  only  the  additional  sum  paid  for  placing 
it  at  a  certain  spot  abroad.  The  merchants  who  have 
to  export  bullion  to  France  will  pay,  say,  205.  Qd. 
here  for  206'.  there,  the  Qd.  being  the  cost  of  trans- 
mission, including  profits  of  the  transmitter,  the  price 
paid  for  its  carriage.  There  is  here  no  difference  in 
relative  price  to  the  other  parts  of  the  currency. 

^T,.  But  supposing  an  imperious  demand  for  bul- 
lion to  continue,  and  yet  to  be  accompanied  by  no 
failure  in  the  credit  supporting  the  convertibility  of 
notes,  by  no  issue  of  inconvertible  notes,  and  by  no 
debasement  of  the  coin;  then  the  gold  for  export 
must  be  procured  in  one  or  both  of  two  markets, 
the  money  market  or  the  goods  market,  and  in  these 
either  by  an  extension  of  private  credit  currency, 
which  is  borrowing  on  the  returns  to  future  in- 
dustry, or  by  a  sale  of  commodities  abroad,  perhaps 
at  a  great  loss,  or  by  what  is  the  same  thing  as  a 
sale  of  commodities,  a  sale  of  foreign  securities,  or 
a  withdrawal  of  foreign  loans.  The  gold  for  export 
will  be  purchased  either  by  a  cheapening  of  commo- 
dities, or  by  a  cheapening  of  securities;  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  latter  case,  it  will  be  attracted  by  offering 
a  high  rate  of  interest,  that  is,  raising  the  rate  of 
discount,  in  the  money  market.  (See  parr.  93  and 
106). 

54.  Bullion  in  fact  has  a  threefold,  and  only  a 
threefold,  function,  a  value  or  equivalent  in  three 
markets,  and,  if  it  is  assumed  to  be  restricted  from 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEXCES. 


409 


varvino"  in  one  of  the  three,  all  its  variations  are  eo      bookii. 

J      n  ....  Ch.  IV. 

ipso  thrown  upon  its  relation  to  its  equivalents  in  — 
the  two  others.  Xow  by  the  fact  that  bullion,  or  staticaiiogic 
coin  at  its  purely  bullion  value,  is  distinguished  from 
all  other  currencv  as  the  sole  medium  of  universal 
exchange,  the  sole  medium  in  Avhich  international 
balances  are  ultimately  paid,  it  becomes,  in  reference 
to  the  rest  of  the  currency,  either  a  commodity  among 
commodities  in  the  goods  market,  or  a  commodity 
the  use  of  which  has  value  in  the  money  market ;  it 
has  no  longer  a  price  but  a  value,  it  becomes  pur- 
chasable only  by  commodities  or  by  credit.  When 
in  demand  for  export,  its  price  is  no  longer,  strictly 
speaking,  price,  but  value;  it  is  the  value  of  the 
currency  in  which  it  is  estimated,  the  value  of  the 
goods  which  purchase  it.  We  thus  return  again  to 
the  universal  point  of  ^4ew,  from  which  we  departed 
in  speaking  of  the  different  currencies  of  particular 
countries,  the  price  of  currency  in  currency.  But 
in  doing;  so  we  enter  on  the  second  branch  of  the 
subject,  the  second  function  of  money,  its  value  in 
the  purchase  of  commodities  and  services. 


IV. 

^^.  In  the  second  branch  of  enquiry,  the  function 
of  money  purchasing  commodities  or  services,  the 
starting  point  is  the  same  as  in  the  first  branch, 
namely,  the  value  of  bullion,  depending  on  its  cost 
of  production,  as  against  the  value  of  commodities 
depending  on  then-  cost  of  production  or  on  their 
scarcity.  Two  things  are  therefore  to  be  noted,  first, 
that  we  may  make  abstraction  of  the  price  of  bullion 
in  currency  or  of  currency  in  bullion,  treating  all 
forms  of  money  as  of  equal  value  against  commodities 


410 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


and  against  each  otlier,  and  secondly,  that  we  must 
begin  with  the  distinction  between  the  natural  and 
market  value  of  money  as  purchased  by  commodities. 

56.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  value  of  money 
depends  on  its  quantity  and  rapidity  of  circulation 
comjDared  to  the  quantity  of  goods  and  the  number  of 
times  they  are  exchanged.  Thus  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill 
(Prmciples  ofPol.  Econ.  Book  iii.  Chap.  viii.  §  3) 
says :  "If  we  assume  the  quantity  of  goods  on  sale, 
and  the  number  of  times  those  goods  are  resold,  to 
be  fixed  quantities,  the  value  of  money  will  depend 
uj)on  its  quantity,  together  with  the  average  number 
of  times  that  each  piece  changes  hands  in  the  pro- 
cess. The  whole  of  the  goods  sold  (counting  each 
resale  of  the  same  goods  as  so  much  added  to  the 
goods)  have  been  exchanged  for  the  whole  of  the 
money,  multiplied  by  the  number  of  purchases  made 
on  the  average  by  each  piece.  Consequently,  the 
amount  of  goods  and  of  transactions  being  the  same, 
the  value  of  money  is  inversely  as  its  quantity  multi- 
plied by  what  is  called  the  rapidity  of  circulation. 
And  the  quantity  of  money  in  circulation  is  equal 
to  the  money  value  of  all  the  goods  sold,  divided 
by  the  number  which  expresses  the  rapidity  of  circu- 
lation." 

57.  But  this  in  reality  tells  iis  nothing.  It  ex- 
presses accurately  in  general  terms  the  result  of 
exchanges,  taking  the  natural  value  and  market  value 
of  money  together ;  it  is  a  description  of  the  relations 
of  money  to  goods  in  terms  of  second  intention,  just 
like  that  description  of  exchanges  between  commo- 
dities which  consists  in  saying  that  supply  will  be 
equal  to  demand  and  demand  to  supply;  and,  as  such 
a  description,  it  is  by  no  means  without  value.     But 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


411 


it  neither  tells  us  the  cause  of  variation  in  the  value 
of  money,  nor  analyses  that  value  into  the  elements 
in  which  the  variations  arise.  The  distinction  which 
it  takes  in  value,  between  the  quantity  of  goods  and 
number  of  exchanges,  and  between  the  quantity  of 
money  and  number  of  purchases,  is  not  a  distinction 
into  elements  of  value  essential  to  a  knowledge  of  its 
variations.  For  this  purpose,  those  elements  must 
be  distinguished  in  which  the  variations  exclusively 
arise. 

58.  A  statement  like  the  one  quoted  may  have 
great  value  in  fixing  our  general  preliminary  con- 
ceptions of  the  object-matter  in  question;  but  it  has 
no  value  as  an  analysis  of  it.  It  comes  merely  to 
saying,  that  the  money  and  its  circulation  is  the 
equivalent  of  the  goods  and  their  circulation,  with 
the  addition,  that  the  proportion  between  money  and 
its  circulation  need  not  be  the  same  as  the  propor- 
tion between  goods  and  their  circulation.  Or,  to  put 
it  in  another  shape,  starting  with  the  same  assump- 
tion as  Mr.  Mill,  if  the  quantity  of  goods  and  the 
number  of  times  they  are  resold  are  assumed  to  be 
fixed,  then  the  value  of  the  money  as  a  ivhole,  the 
value  of  the  whole  quantity  used,  will  be  greater  or 
less  according  as  the  same  pieces  are  used  less  or 
more  frequently.  But  it  is  not  the  value  of  the 
money  as  a  whole  which  it  is  essential  to  know;  in 
fact  we  begin  with  assuming  it,  since  it  must  be  equal 
to  that  of  the  goods  which  it  purchases;  it  is  the 
value  of  the  particular  portions,  or  coins,  which  com- 
pose it;  and  of  these  values  we  certainly  want  to 
know  more  than  that  they  will  be  greater  or  less 
according  as  the  whole  value,  of  which  they  are 
parts,  increases  or  diminishes.     Prices  of  particular 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


412  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

BooKiL  goods,  and  values  of  particular  portions  of  money, 
—  have  no  dependence  upon  the  proportion  between 
staticaiiogic  mouey  and  its  circulation  compared  to  goods  and 
their  circulation.  It  is  true  that,  if  prices  rise,  goods 
and  their  circulation  remaining  the  same,  the  money 
employed  must  have  been  increased  either  in  circu- 
lation, or  in  quantity,  or  in  both ;  and  that  if  they 
fall,  under  the  same  supposition,  the  money  must 
have  been  decreased  either  in  circulation,  or  in  quan- 
tity, or  in  both.  But  this  variation  begins  in  the 
particular  prices,  not  in  the  relations  which  express 
their  total  results;  these  results  so  expressed  are 
general  truths  which  hold  good  whatever  the  par- 
ticular values  may  be. 

59.  What,  then,  is  the  distinction  indicating  the 
elements  of  value  in  which  the  variations  originate  ? 
That  between  the  part  of  it  determined  by  its  natural 
rate  and  the  part  added  to  or  subtracted  from  this 
by  oscillations  in  the  market  rate.  Here  at  last  we 
are  on  firm  ground.  The  natural  value  of  money 
is  determined  by  its  permanent  cost  of  production 
as  compared  to  the  permanent  cost  of  production  of 
each  of  the  various  commodities  which  it  purchases. 
When  its  cost  of  production  decreases,  a  greater  quan- 
tity will  be  produced  from  the  mines,  the  value  of 
each  portion  of  it  will  fall,  and  the  prices  of  all  other 
commodities  will  rise,  supposmg  no  change  to  have 
taken  place  in  their  cost  of  production.  Where  money 
is  the  cheapest  to  produce,  there  it  will  be  the  most 
plentiful;  it  is  not  cheap  because  it  is  plentiful,  but 
plentiful  because  it  is  cheap ;  those  countries  are  the 
first  to  feel  the  efi'ect  of  the  increased  supply  which 
are  in  most  complete  communication  with  the  coun- 
tries which  produce  it;  prices  being  highest  at  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PKACTIGAL  SCIENCES. 


413 


mine's  mouth.  Thence  it  circuLates  through  the  world 
at  large,  raising  prices  in  all  places  where  goods  or 
services  are  exchanged  for  it,  until,  as  is  said,  it  '  per- 
meates all  the  channels  of  trade,'  The  full  effects  of 
a  large  discovery  of  gold  will  not  be  felt  for  many 
years ;  and  the  rise  of  prices  which  it  tends  to  cause 
may  of  course  be  counteracted  by  a  corresponding 
increase  in  the  cheapness  of  production  of  the  com- 
modities or  services  for  sale. 

60.  From  the  effects  of  such  additional  produc- 
tion of  gold  there  is  no  escape.  Since  it  is  the  uni- 
versal purchaser,  and  the  remunerativeness  of  its 
production  depends  on  physical  causes,  namely,  the 
comparative  ease  with  which  it  can  be  produced,  it 
must  influence  the  prices  of  commodities,  whether 
the  holders  of  those  commodities  like  it  or  not,  whe- 
ther the  exchanges  of  commodities  between  them- 
selves can  be  effected  better  or  worse  by  the  greater 
quantity  of  it.  Particular  values  or  prices  do  not 
depend  upon  the  quantity  of  money  compared  to  the 
w^ork  which  the  money  has  to  do,  the  interchanges 
of  commodities  which  it  has  to  effect.  This  is  the 
value-in-use  of  money,  its  general  U,  as  explained 
in  par,  5,  The  briskness  of  this  interchange  has  no 
causal  influence  on  prices ;  if  it  increases,  more  money 
or  a  greater  use  of  the  same  money,  will  be  required, 
but  at  the  prices  fixed  by  the  relative  cost  of  pro- 
duction of  the  money  and  of  the  various  commodities. 
Were  prices  fixed  by  the  quantity  of  money  compared 
to  the  work  which  it  has  to  do,  namely,  the  inter- 
change of  commodities,  we  should  then  require  to  be 
told  how,  or  by  whom,  this  work  is  estimated  and  a 
certain  quantity  of  money  destined  to  perform  it. 

6 1 .  But  whence  spring  the  oscillations  about  this 


]5ooK  ir. 

Cir.  IV. 

§96. 
Statical  lofric 
of  mouev. 


414 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IT. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


natural  value  of  money,  which  together  with  it  con- 
stitute its  market  value?  It  is  clear  that  they  do 
not  spring  from  any  fluctuation  in  the  demand  for 
money,  except  so  far  as  that  demand  is  made  eificient 
by  the  possession  of  commodities  wherewith  to  pur- 
chase it.  Money  being  the  universal  purchaser,  all 
men  everywhere  wish  for  it,  and  '  the  more  they  have 
the  more  they  want.'  For  the  same  reason  they 
cannot  spring  from  the  supply  of  money  at  any  par- 
ticular time  or  place  being  in  excess  or  defect.  It 
never  is  in  excess  or  defect,  compared  to  the  efficient 
demand ;  it  is  at  once  supphed,  at  existing  prices,  to 
all  who  have  commodities  to  give  for  it.  It  remains, 
therefore,  that  the  oscillations  in  its  market  value 
depend  either  upon  those  temporary  variations  in  its 
cost  of  production  which  originate  in  the  process  of 
production  itself,  or  upon  the  variations  in  market 
value,  from  time  to  time  and  place  to  place,  of  the 
various  commodities  which  it  purchases,  upon  which 
depend  the  varying  number  and  amount  of  exchanges 
which  it  is  required  to  perform.  Now  the  tempor- 
ary variations  in  the  cost  of  j)roduction  of  money  are 
clearly  a  cause  of  oscillations  about  the  permanent 
value  fixed  by  its  permanent  cost  of  production ;  but 
the  other  source  of  variation  now  supposed  mil  be 
found  to  have  been  already  disposed  of,  in  principle 
at  least,  in  the  remarks  made  about  its  natural  value. 
62.  Let  us  then  leave  apart  the  temporary  changes 
in  the  cost  of  production  of  money,  as  being  an  ele- 
ment which  is  undisputed  in  its  market  value,  and 
turn  to  those  changes  which  arise  in  the  varying  mar- 
ket value  of  different  commodities,  and  consequently 
varying  number  and  amount  of  the  exchanges  which 
money  is  required  to  perform.    If  any  particular  com- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


415 


modity  is  in  great  demand  compared  to  its  present 
supply,  so  that  a  great  number  of  exchanges  are  set 
on  foot  by  stimulated  production,  its  market  value 
will  be  high,  the  value  of  money  purchasing  it  low, 
that  is,  it  will  command  a  high  price ;  if  in  abundant 
supply  but  small  demand,  its  price  will  be  low,  the 
money  purchasing  it  will  have  a  raised  value.  But 
these  variations  in  the  value  of  money  are  variations 
in  it  as  the  measure  and  medium  of  exchange,  and 
not  in  its  market  value,  as  a  commodity  having  ex- 
change value  itself,  because  they  are  changes  which 
money  shares  with  all  commodities,  except  only  those 
in  which  the  change  has  arisen,  and  because  by  the 
market  value  of  any  commodity  must  be  meant  its 
value  against  all  other  commodities  as  a  whole,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  its  natural  value.  Changes  in  the 
market  value  of  money,  therefore,  can  arise  only  from 
temporary  changes  in  its  cost  of  production,  and  not 
from  changes  either  in  the  cost  of  production,  or  in 
the  market  value,  of  commodities,  by  which  some  are 
affected  and  not  all.  The  natural  value  of  money, 
just  like  the  natural  value  of  other  commodities,  is 
fixed  by  its  permanent  cost  of  production  relatively 
to  theirs,  and  its  market  value  by  temporary  changes 
in  that  cost  relatively  to  temporary  changes  in  theirs, 
taken  as  a  whole.  But  the  changes  in  price  which 
come  from  increased  or  diminished  cost  of  produc- 
tion, increased  or  diminished  supply  or  demand,  of 
particular  commodities,  producing  changes  in  the 
number  and  amount  of  exchanges  to  be  performed, 
are  not  changes  in  the  market  value  of  money,  but 
only  in  the  value  of  some  goods  in  other  goods  ex- 
pressed by  money.  In  the  money  market  however 
the  case  is  different ;  there  the  market  value  of  money 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  loi^ic 

of  money. 


416 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


means  the  value,  not  of  money,  but  of  its  use  for  a 
certain  time,  that  is,  the  rate  of  interest. 

6^.  But  the  question  may  be  asked.  Since  money 
measures  vakies  and  effects  exchanges  between  com- 
modities only  by  being  itself  exchanged  against  them, 
portion  for  portion,  how  can  a  change  in  price  be  a 
change  only  in  the  value  of  commodities  in  commo- 
dities expressed  by  money,  without  being  at  the  same 
time  a  change  in  the  value  of  the  money  itself  ?  The 
answer  to  this  question  brings  us  to  the  very  knot 
of  the  difficulty,  if  difficulty  there  be,  the  turning 
point  of  the  connection  between  money  as  a  commo- 
dity and  money  as  the  measure  and  medium  of  ex- 
change, between  money  in  the  goods  market,  where 
it  has  value,  and  money  in  the  currency  market,  where 
it  has  price.  It  will  be  seen  that  two  functions  of 
money  are  inseparably  involved  in  every  single  act 
of  exchange,  the  act  being  indeed  empirically  indi- 
visible, but  logically  distinguishable  into  its  two  ele- 
ments and  two  functions  ;  in  treating  which,  there- 
fore, the  metaphysical  conception  of  elements  only 
logically  distinguishable  is  the  only  available  instru- 
ment. 

64.  Gold  is  one  of  those  commodities  which  are 
capable  of  indefinite  further  production  by  a  corre- 
sponding additional  employment  of  labour  and  capital, 
commodities  in  which  the  market  value  is  clearly 
distinguishable  from  the  natural.  Now  just  as  the 
value -in -use  of  commodities,  whose  D  consists  in 
scarcity  alone,  must  be  measured  by  the  purchaser 
against  the  value-in- use  of  reproducible  commodities, 
before  their  exchange  value  can  be  estimated  by  him 
in  money ;  for  before  he  knows  how  much  money  he 
is  willing  to  give  for  them  he  must  settle  how  much 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


417 


of  reproducible  commodities  he  is  willing  to  forego 
in  consequence  ;  so  the  cost  of  production  of  gold 
determines  the  value  of  all  the  other  forms  of  cur- 
rency which  represent  a  determinate  amount  of  it. 
The  value  of  coin,  notes,  and  bills,  is  the  value  of  the 
bullion  which  they  contain  or  represent,  minus  the 
debasement  or  depreciation  to  which  they  are  liable. 
A  change  in  their  value  is  a  change  in  their  price, 
that  is,  in  their  value  as  against  bullion,  and  not  in 
their  value  as  against  commodities.  The  basis  of 
value  in  all  of  them  is  the  value  of  bullion  as  against 
other  reproducible  commodities.  But  their  quantity 
is  indefinite  and  inexhaustible,  at  least  it  is  restricted 
only  by  the  limits  of  credit.  When  commodities  are 
in  existence,  and  require  to  be  exchanged,  money  can 
be  and  is  created  at  once  and  to  any  amount  to  effect 
the  exchange,  and  is  again  destroyed  at  the  close  of 
the  whole  transaction.  But  the  value  of  the  portions 
of  money  thus  created  is  fixed  by  the  existing  value 
of  bullion  together  with  the  debasement  or  depre- 
ciation, if  any,  of  the  coin  or  paper  representing  it. 
Abstracting  from  this  latter  source  of  variation,  the 
value  of  money  is  the  value  of  bullion  in  reproducible 
commodities,  independent  of  the  quantity  of  the  money 
used,  or  frequency  of  its  use,  and  independent  of  the 
quantity  of  goods  or  number  of  exchanges  between 
them.  And  this  value  it  is  which  is  said  to  remain 
unaltered,  when  the  value  of  particular  commodities 
changes  without  a  change  in  the  cost  of  producing 
the  single  commodity,  gold.  That  commodity  only, 
the  cost  of  whose  production  has  changed,  has  changed 
its  value  in  other  commodities,  and  in  gold  among 
the  rest ;  the  value  of  gold  has  changed  only  in  rela- 
tion to  that  commodity.      The  labour  and  the  com- 

VOL.  II.  EB 


Book  U. 
Cu.  IV. 


§90, 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


418 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PKACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


modities  employed  as  capital  in  producing  it  are  the 
first  things  in  relation  to  which  it  changes  value  ; 
that  is,  it  is  a  chano;e  in  value  between  commodities 
and  services,  before  it  is  a  change  in  money  value  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  it  is  a  change  in  value  of  a  com- 
modity in  commodities  and  services,  expressed  in 
money,  quite  independently  of  the  circumstance  that 
gold  is  included  in  the  class  of  commodities,  as  against 
which  it  has  changed,  and  notwithstanding  that  the 
two  changes  are  equal  to  each  other  and  inseparable, 
being,  as  they  are,  two  functions  of  one  and  the  same 
act  of  exchange,  the  purchase  of  goods  or  of  services 
by  money.  When  any  commodity  varies  in  its  cost 
of  production  it  varies  in  market  value  against  all 
the  rest  which  have  not  changed ;  the  change  in  mar- 
ket value  is  said  to  be  in  that  commodity  in  which 
the  change  has  arisen,  or  in  which  the  cause  of  change 
lies.  When  gold  is  among  the  commodities  which 
have  not  changed,  in  the  case  supposed,  its  market 
value  has  not  changed,  notwithstanding  that  it  has 
become  more  or  less  valuable  than  the  commodity 
which  has  chano-ed.  The  chano;e  is  common  to  it 
with  all  commodities  except  this  one,  and  its  changed 
value  is  a  measure  of  that  general  change,  as  well 
as  a  change  in  its  own  value  against  that  particular 
commodity. 

6^.  The  proposition  of  greatest  importance  which 
results  from  this  analysis,  and  which  sums  it  up  in 
a  form  suitable  for  application  to  practice,  is  the  fol- 
lowing: the  money  which  is  imported  or  exported 
from  a  country,  except  from  the  mines,  additions 
from  which  source  have  their  value  fixed  by  cost 
of  production,  that  is,  all  the  money  which  is  im- 
ported or  exported  in  settlement  of  an  international 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


419 


balance,  has  no  effect  upon  the  value  of  commodities       book  n. 
in  money,  or  of  money  m  commodities.     Although 


96. 


when  imported  it  is  an  addition  to  the  quantity  of    staticaiiogic 

.  .        ,  .  .  ,  of  money. 

money  m  the  country,  it  does  not  raise  prices,  but 
is  a  part  of  prices  which  have  been  already  raised, 
and  raised  not  by  an  addition  to  the  quantity  of 
money  in  the  country,  or  elsewhere,  but  either  by 
an  increased  purchase  of  commodities  on  speculation, 
or  by  a  more  profitable  sale  of  commodities  already 
produced.  It  is  a  part  of  the  market  value  of  com- 
modities in  other  commodities,  measured  by  money, 
not  of  commodities  generally  in  money  as  a  whole  ; 
and  therefore  the  increased  or  diminished  quantity 
of  money  employed  in  the  exchange  of  these  com- 
modities is  the  effect  of  chano;es  in  value  between 
these  commodities  themselves,  but  not  the  cause  of 
future  changes  in  those  values. 

66,  It  may  seem  at  first  sight,  that  the  amount 
of  money  which  will  be  paid  from  abroad  for  any 
commodity  has  necessarily  one  part  of  it  fixed  by 
the  natural,  the  other  by  the  oscillations  in  market, 
value  of  money,  that  is,  by  the  plenty  or  scarcity  of 
money  compared  to  commodities  generally.  But  that 
this  is  not  the  case  is  evident  from  the  account  given 
above,  par.  ^6^  of  the  Foreign  Exchanges.  Ready 
money  is  not  paid  from  abroad,  as  it  is  or  may  be 
paid  at  home,  for  commodities  as  they  are  bought; 
it  is  paid  in  the  form  of  private  credit  currency,  bills 
of  exchange,  which  are  balanced  against  each  other, 
till  the  amount  on  one  side  exceeds  the  amount  on 
the  other  to  a  certain  extent  determined  by  what  is 
called  specie  point  on  either  side ;  up  to  this  point, 
the  purchase  of  commodities  by  bills  of  exchange  is 
a  purchase  of  them   by  other  commodities,   not  by 


420 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 

§96, 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


money.  And  here  we  must  advert  to  differences, 
before  abstracted  from,  between  different  kinds  of 
currency;  not  however  differences  in  the  value  of 
different  kinds  of  currency,  but  differences  in  their 
mode  of  operation.  The  use  of  private  credit  cur- 
rency in  settling  international  accounts,  irrespective 
of  its  value  as  compared  to  ready  money,  enables  us 
to  draw  a  distinction  between  that  part  of  interna- 
tional purchases  which  is  paid  for  by  commodities 
and  that  which  is  paid  for  by  money.  Now,  since 
no  money,  as  distinguished  from  private  credit  cur- 
rency and  from  commodities,  passes  between  any  two 
countries,  until  the  total  imports  differ  by  a  certain 
considerable  amount  from  the  total  exports,  there- 
fore all  the  money  that  passes  in  settlement  of  such 
balances  is  a  part  of  the  whole  payment  for  the  com- 
modities transferred,  and  moreover  a  part  which  does 
not  arise  except  in  consequence  of  a  difference  be- 
tween supply  and  demand  of  particular  commodities, 
and  which  must  therefore  be  reckoned  to  belong 
wholly  to  differences  in  value  between  these  com- 
modities, and  not  to  a  difference  in  value  between 
them  and  money. 

6"^.  That  the  foreign  payments  which  are  made 
by  means  of  bills,  balancing  each  other  up  to  specie 
point  either  way,  are  virtually  made  by  commodities 
and  not  by  money  might  be  shown  from  many  ap- 
proved authors  on  money  and  commerce.  I  will  how- 
ever content  myself  with  the  following  citation  from 
Mr.  Wilson's  Capital,  Currency,  and  Banking,  p.  218. 
"  Gold  is  a  commodity  which  is  imported,  like  other 
commodities,  only  when  it  offers  to  the  merchants 
the  greatest  inducements.  As  long  as  avooI,  or  silk, 
or  tallow,  or  any  other  commodity  is  scarce  at  home. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


421 


and  offers  a  profit  to  import,  no  merchant  will  buy  Book  it. 
bullion ;  but  when  the  stocks  of  all  other  commodi-  — —  * 
ties  are  so  full,  that  the  prices  at  home  are  such  that    staticaiiogic 


it  will  not  answer  the  purpose  of  the  merchant  to 
import  them,  then  he  has  recourse  to  bullion  as  the 
most  profitable  return.  So  that  bullion  is  never  im- 
ported except  when  the  stocks  of  other  commodities 
are  large,  and  their  relative  prices  in  this  country 
and  others  such  as  will  not  remunerate  the  importer. 
Then  bullion  is  taken  as  the  best  mode  of  balancing 
the  Exchanges." 

68,  To  turn  the  matter  round,  we  may  abstract 
entirely,  in  considering  the  causes  and  the  effects  of 
variation  in  prices,  from  the  quantity  of  money  as 
compared  to  the  quantity  of  commodities  and  number 
of  exchanges,  because  variations  in  quantity  of  money, 
from  time  to  time  applicable  in  the  world  to  pur- 
poses of  exchange,  are  variations  which  affect  equally 
all  commodities  and  services  alike.  And  the  case 
of  money  imported  or  exported,  as  payment  of  an 
international  balance,  has  been  shown  to  be  no  ex- 
ception to  this  rule.  Those  changes  of  price  and  of 
value,  which  accompany  such  import  or  export,  are 
not  caused  by  it;  and  the  effects  also  which  follow 
those  changes  are  caused  by  the  changes  themselves, 
and  not  by  the  greater  or  less  abundance  of  money 
which  accompanies  them.  Just  as  Mr.  Tooke  and 
Mr.  Fullarton  (see  the  latter's  Regulation  of  Cur- 
rencies, Chap.  iii.  p.  57  et  seqq.,  2nd  edit.)  main- 
tained that  an  increase  or  decrease  in  the  issues  of 
convertible  notes  has  no  effect  on  prices,  but  is  caused 
by  an  increase  or  decrease  of  business,  or  by  a  rise  or 
fall  of  prices,  so  here  the  same  is  maintained  of  all 
currency  whatever,  except  an  additional  supply  from 


of  money. 


422 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES, 


Book  II.      the  mines.     For,  if  we  suppose  an  additional  issue 

— —         of  paper  money,  or  inconvertible  notes,  the  rise  of 

Statical  logic    i^rices  from  this  cause  will  be  solely  due  to  deprecia- 

of  money.        ^ ,  ,  ...  n      i 

tion,  will  come  out  of  the  diminished  value  of  the 
paper  as  compared  with  currency  in  other  forms, 
and  not  out  of  a  diminution  of  the  value  of  money 
as  compared  with  commodities.  There  is  however 
one  way,  one  channel,  through  which  the  money  im- 
ported or  exported  in  payment  of  international  bal- 
ances affects  indirectly  the  prices  of  commodities,  a 
way  which  will  presently  be  mentioned,  and  which 
forms  the  common  element  connecting  the  function 
of  money  purchasing  commodities  or  services  in  the 
goods  market  with  that  of  money  purchasing  debts 
or  securities  in  the  money  market. 

69.  Abstracting  however  for  the  present  from 
this  influence,  the  causes  which  govern  the  market 
values  or  prices  of  commodities  may  be  classed  under 
two  heads.  The  first  consists  of  the  relative  quan- 
tities of  commodities,  expressed  by  their  relative 
prices,  existing  at  any  one  time;  and  the  second  of 
the  speculative  purchases  and  speculative  production 
of  commodities,  induced  by  a  more  or  less  accurate 
calculation  of  profits,  and  a  greater  or  less  prudence 
in  sjDeculating,  upon  a  consideration  of  those  quan- 
tities and  prices.  The  quantities  and  prices  of  com- 
modities, at  the  end  of  any  one  period,  are  the  result 
of  the  speculation  founded  on  the  knowledge  of  the 
corresponding  quantities  and  prices  at  the  beginning 
of  it;  and  these  quantities  and  prices  are  again  the 
foundation  of  the  speculation  for  the  next  period. 
Quantities  and  prices  of  commodities  are  first  the 
condition  of  speculation,  then  the  result  of  the  specu- 
lation superinduced  upon  those  quantities  and  prices 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


423 


which  were  its  condition.  Though  varying  of  course 
from  period  to  period,  they  are  relatively  to  specu- 
lation the  known  or  fixed  element,  while  speculation 
is  the  variable  element,  in  the  production  of  the 
quantities  and  prices  of  commodities  which  result 
from  both  together. 

70,  Now  there  are  many  causes  which  operate 
primarily  only  on  the  first  of  these  two  elements, 
on  the  quantities  and  prices  of  commodities,  as  the 
condition  of  further  speculation.  Many  of  these  are 
most  important,  such  for  instance  as  good  or  bad 
seasons,  the  immense  importance  of  which  in  affect- 
ing food,  an  article  of  prime  necessity,  was  so  clearly 
shown  by  Mr.  Tooke  in  his  History  of  Prices.  War, 
new  discoveries  whether  of  materials  or  of  markets, 
new  inventions  in  manufacture  or  means  of  transport, 
any  new  direction  given  to  industry  by  change  of 
fashions  or  tastes,  losses  by  accident  or  by  fraud, 
are  among  the  causes  which  directly  affect  prices  and 
quantities  of  commodities,  to  which  all  further  spe- 
culation must  conform.  They  are  in  the  position  of 
conditions  extraneous  to  the  art  of  political  economy, 
which  as  an  art  is  properly  restricted  to  the  task  of 
accommodating  itself  to  such  circumstances,  and  to 
the  state  of  prices  which  are  their  result.  The  logic 
of  the  subject  at  least  has  nothing  further  to  do  with 
them ;  speculation  is  the  thread  which  it  has  to  follow. 

71.  Accordingly  it  may  be  said  that  future  prices 
depend  upon  the  amount  and  direction  of  specula- 
tion, and  that  speculation  depends  upon  two  things, 
first,  the  amount  and  kind  of  capital  invested,  se- 
cond, the  prudence  or  imprudence  of  the  investment, 
which  however  can  only  be  tested  by  the  result.  But 
here  arises  the  distinction  which  carries  us  over  into 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


424 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  mone}-. 


the  next  branch  of  the  subject.  The  amount  of  the 
capital  invested  by  an  individual  industrialist  is  not 
limited  by  the  gross  profits  or  total  income  which 
he  has  already  realised.  He  can  raise  money  which 
will  purchase  capital,  by  pledging  his  expectations 
of  future  profits;  and  those  to  whom  these  pledges 
or  securities  are  given  may  themselves  raise  money 
upon  them,  on  the  expectation,  afforded  by  the  secu- 
rities, that  they  will  be  repaid  by  the  original  issuer, 
according  to  the  description  given  in  par.  18.  There 
is  a  vast  amount  of  material  capital  existing  in  the 
world,  which  has  been  produced  only  on  the  prospect 
of  this  demand  for  it  existing. 

72.  When  any  one  employs  as  capital  materials 
or  instruments  purchased  by  the  commodities  which 
he  has  already  produced,  the  capital  which  he  em- 
ploys is  his  own,  but  the  moment  that  he  employs 
as  capital  commodities  purchased  by  his  expectations 
of  future  profits,  although  these  profits  will  be  as 
much  his  own  as  those  already  realised,  yet  he  ne- 
cessarily procures  them  from  the  mass  of  capital  just 
spoken  of,  which  has  been  produced  in  prospect  of  a 
demand  for  it  arising.  The  capital  which  he  employs 
belongs  to  some  other  person,  and  he  borrows  it,  or 
buys  the  use  of  it  by  incurring  a  debt.  The  line  be- 
tween an  industrialist's  realised  profits  and  expected 
profits,  employed  as  capital,  coincides  exactl}^  with  the 
line  between  his  own  and  his  borrowed  capital.  Not, 
of  course,  that  he  borrows  the  capital,  which  exists  for 
the  most  part  only  in  a  purchasable  not  in  a  loanable 
form,  but  he  borrows  money  and  with  it  bu3^s  the 
capital.  Just  as  a  hatter  sells  hats  for  money  and  with 
the  money  buys  shoes,  so  the  industrialist  sells  se- 
curities for  money  and  with  the  money  buys  capital. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


425 


73.  Whence  comes  the  money,  and  to  whom  does 
it  belong  ?  The  money  is  an  accumulation  of  real 
rights  to  commodities  and  services,  but  existing  for 
the  most  part  in  the  form  of  private  credit  currency, 
just  as  the  security  does  with  which  it  is  bought.  The 
difference  is,  that  the  security  must  be  private  credit 
currency,  but  the  money  may  be  currency  of  any  kind. 
And  the  money  belongs  to  private  monied  capitalists, 
to  bankers,  and  to  bill  brokers,  who  are  the  owners  of 
money  which  is  intended  to  be  employed  in  the  pur- 
chase of  securities,  that  is,  employed  in  the  money 
market.  The  mode  in  which  these  accumulations 
are  formed,  and  the  processes  by  which  they  are  em- 
ployed in  the  purchase  of  securities,  fall  properly 
under  the  third  head  of  the  enquiry. 

74.  But  how  does  this  money,  these  rights  to 
commodities  and  services,  come  to  be  accumulated, 
and  are  they  real  values  and  real  wealth?  They  cer- 
tainly are  real  values  and  real  wealth,  and  they  are 
accumulated  just  in  the  same  way  and  from  the  same 
causes  which  lead  to  the  accumulation  of  the  capital 
which  they  purchase.  They  are  accumulated  in 
consequence  of  the  expectation  that  there  will  be  a 
demand  for  them,  a  demand  for  money  in  the  money 
market.  The  corresponding  truth  to  this  was  shown, 
in  §  95.  59  and  94,  with  respect  to  accumulations  of 
capital;  the  same  holds  good  with  respect  to  money. 

75.  Three  things  are  requisite  to  exchanges  of 
credit  for  capital,  namely,  credit,  money,  and  capital. 
The  money  is  the  medium  and  measure  of  exchange 
in  this  case,  just  as  much  as  in  the  case  of  exchanges 
of  commodities ;  and  in  both  cases  alike  the  exchange 
is  effected  only  by  money  being  exchanged  first  for 
one  and  then  for  the  other,  as  if  it  were,  what  indeed 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§96. 

S'latical  logic 

of  monej'. 


426 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


it  is,  an  independent  and  separate  commodity.  A 
destruction  of  any  one  of  the  three  members  of  the 
exchange  is  a  loss  of  market  for  the  other  two,  and 
consequently  a  loss  of  value  until  a  new  market  is 
found.  Not  only  the  loss  of  credit  by  industrialists 
is  a  destruction  of  values  and  of  wealth,  but  also  a 
loss  of  banker's  money  is  so.  It  equally  destroys  the 
market  for  the  capital.  Being  therefore  a  real  right 
to  commodities  and  services,  banker's  money  is  real 
value  and  real  wealth. 

76.  This  being  premised,  what  is  the  eifect  of  an 
import  or  export  of  money  as  the  balance  of  inter- 
national transactions?     It  is   only  imported  or  ex- 
ported in  the  form  of  bullion,    or   coin   at   bullion 
value ;  and  it  is  only  imported  or  exported  instead  of 
commodities,  being  less  profitable  than  they  would 
be  in  other  circumstances,  but  more  profitable  as  cir- 
cumstances actually  are.    When  imported  it   shows 
that  there  is  already  an  abundance  of  commodities 
in  the  country,  for  otherwise  commodities  would  come, 
and  not  bullion  ;  bullion  being  a  commodity  which 
brings  no  profit  in  the  goods  market  (§  95.  76),     Now 
if  commodities    came,    they   would   go   to    increase 
the  general  fund  of  capital,  to  which  that  also  be- 
longs which  is  purchased  by  borrowed  money;  but 
when  bullion  comes,  it  increases  the  fund  of  money 
which  purchases  those  commodities,  and  which  is  it- 
self in  turn  purchased  by  securities.    It  increases  the 
supply  of  money  in  the  money  market,  instead  of 
the  supply  of  commodities,  or  of  money,  in  the  goods 
market. 

77.  In  the  money  market  it  tends  to  lower  the 
rate  of  interest,  and  thus  facilitates  speculation  with 
borrowed  capital.     It  has  therefore  a  direct  influence 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


427 


on  speculation,  increasing  it,  and  an  indirect  action 
on  prices,  by  the  demand  for  commodities  produced 
by  that  increase  of  speculation. 

78.  Similarly,  an  export  of  bullion  diminishes  spe- 
culation by  raising  the  rate  of  interest,  and  through 
diminished  speculation  tends  to  lower  prices,  by 
lowering  the  demand  for  commodities  to  be  used  as 
capital. 

79.  To  return  then  to  our  thesis,  —  all  prices 
depend  on  speculation,  and  not  on  the  quantity  of 
money;  but  there  is  one  mode  in  which  a  change  in 
the  quantity  of  money, — namely,  an  import  or  ex- 
port in  payment  of  an  international  balance, — operates 
upon  prices,  namely,  by  operating  first  upon  specu- 
lation. 

80.  The  double  function  of  bullion,  imported  or 
exported  in  payment  of  an  international  balance,  is 
therefore  the  joint,  or  connecting  link,  between  the 
goods  market  and  the  money  market,  and  between 
the  corresponding  functions  of  money. 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§!)6. 

St  itical  logic 

of  money. 


V. 

81.  The  examination  of  the  mechanism  of  the 
money  market,  and  of  the  price  paid  for  the  use  of 
money,  or  rate  of  interest,  is  the  third  branch  of  the 
enquiry,  and  will  complete  the  whole  subject.  It 
was  said  in  par,  37,  that  the  bullion  exported  or 
imported  was  the  balance  of  indebtedness  between 
two  nations  on  all  transactions  between  them.  What 
kinds  of  transactions  are  included  in  this  phrase? 
Not  only  exchange  of  goods,  but  also  such  accounts 
as  the  folio wino; : 

Services,   such  as  freight,  and  other  carriage 
of  goods. 


428 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


Foreign  Government  Stock, 

Shares  in  foreign  industrial  enterprises, 

Subsidies,  and  Government  Loans, 

Tributes, 

Expenses  of  travellers  and  employes. 
In  the  case  of  stock,  shares,  subsidies,  and  loans,  the 
entire  principal  sums  go  out  of  the  country,  and 
only  the  securities  and  dividends  come  back  in  return. 
Tributes,  travellers'  and  employes'  expenses,  and  ser- 
vices, go  out  of  the  country  without  any  return  in 
the  shape  of  money ;  the  services  performed  are  the 
return  for  them,  just  as  goods  are  in  the  case  of  a 
purchase  and  sale  of  goods.  These  are  therefore 
cases  of  transactions  belonging  to  the  goods  market, 
Avhere  money  purchases  commodities  or  services.  That 
the  commodity  is  an  interest-  or  dividend-bearing 
security,  in  some  cases,  makes  no  difference  in  the 
nature  of  the  transactions.  The  interest  or  dividends 
when  paid  are  part  of  the  commodity  received  in 
exchange.  The  rate  of  interest  is  another  question, 
and  the  only  part  of  these  transactions  which  belongs 
to  the  money  market. 

82.  The  same  distinction  must  be  taken  in  corre- 
sponding transactions  at  home.  Stock  and  shares 
are  bought  in  the  market  for  money,  and  these  are 
dealings  in  commodities  of  a  certain  kind.  The  value 
of  these  commodities  depends  upon  the  rate  of  inter- 
est, but  this  rate  itself  is  the  only  thing  which  pro- 
perly belongs  to  the  money  market.  So  also  in  what 
is  called  by  Mr.  Macleocl  Mercantile  Credit,  where 
bills  of  exchange  or  cheques  upon  bank  deposits  are 
given  by  one  merchant  to  another.  These  are  ad- 
vances of  money,  but  the  equivalent  for  them  consists 
in  the  commodities  or  services  rendered  in  return. 


LOGIC  OE  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


429 


No  money  is  paid  for  the  use  of  money,  the  use  of 
money  is  not  bought  by  interest  or  by  discount,  luitil 
the  bills  are  discounted  by  a  banker.  Then  first  they 
enter  the  money  market. 

83.  In  both  foreign  and  home  dealings  in  stock, 
shares,  bills,  and  cheques,  that  part  of  the  transac- 
tions, in  which  they  are  exchanges  of  commodities 
for  money,  and  in  which  they  depend  upon  the  rate 
of  interest,  must  be  distinguished  from  that  other 
part,  in  which  they  not  only  depend  upon,  but  also 
in  turn  themselves  influence,  the  current  rate  of  in- 
terest, or  price  of  the  use  of  money  for  a  certain  time. 
The  foreign  exchanges  were  said,  in  par.  48,  to  be- 
long to  all  three  markets,  or  functions  of  money; 
their  phice  in  the  currency  market  was  there  ex- 
plained; their  place  in  the  money  market  depends 
upon  the  interest  or  discount  with  which  the  bills 
are  originally  purchased;  and  their  position  in  the 
goods  market  is  now  clear,  for  not  only  is  the  ex- 
change of  bills  virtually  an  exchange  of  commodities 
(par.  67),  but  the  bills  themselves  are  a  new  kind  of 
commodities,  bought  and  sold  for  the  sake  of  the 
difference  in  their  value  at  different  places,  at  what- 
ever rate  they  may  have  been  originally  discounted. 
To  this  function  of  bills  belong  all  the  operations 
included  in  what  is  known  as  the  Arbitration  of 
Exchanges,  operations  which  are  therefore  excluded 
from  the  examination  of  the  money  market  strictly 
so  called. 

84.  The  first  question  with  regard  to  the  rate  of 
interest  arises  from  the  distinction  between  natural 
and  market  value.  Interest  has  no  natural  rate  in 
the  same  sense  as  commodities  indefinitely  producible 
have.    It  has  an  average  rate,  about  which  its  market 


Book  IT. 
Cii.  IV. 


Statical  l(i,i;ic 
of  money. 


430 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch,  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


rate  oscillates ;  but  this  is  not  a  natural  rate  in  the 
strict  sense,  since  it  is  not  referable  to  any  cause 
beyond  the  supply  and  demand  itself.  The  average 
rate  is  an  inferred  result,  deducible  from  the  fluctu- 
ating market  rate,  not  an  element  contributing  to 
cause  those  fluctuations.  We  cannot  therefore  begin 
vnth  determining  the  average  rate,  but  must  wait 
till  the  market  rate  and  its  fluctuations  are  at  least 
to  some  extent  determined,  before  asking  what  the 
average  rate  may  be.  But  this  market  rate  has 
limits,  one  of  which  is  fixed  by  other  cii'cumstances, 
arising  in  another  market,  iiamely,  the  goods  market. 
Its  maximum  is  fixed  by  the  rate  of  profits.  The 
profits  expected  in  particular  enterprises  fix  the  maxi- 
mum which  can  be  paid  by  the  borrowers,  for  the 
purpose  of  those  enterprises.  (See  §  95.  6i).  Since 
the  profits  in  dififerent  trades,  and  in  the  same  at 
difi^erent  times,  vary  considerably,  the  maximum  of 
the  rate  of  interest  will  vary  likewise.  The  minimum, 
on  the  other  hand,  depends  entirely  on  the  reward 
which  owners  of  money  "will  be  content  with,  rather 
than  either  wait  for  better  times,  or  spend  the  money 
as  revenue,  or  employ  it  themselves  in  trade. 

85.  The  limits  of  the  rate  of  interest  leave  a  wide 
scope  for  fluctuations,  which  arise  from  the  supply 
and  demand  of  money  at  different  times,  in  different 
enterprises,  and  are  reacted  on  again  by  the  rate  itself, 
there  being  possibly  a  supply  or  a  demand  for  money 
at  one  rate,  when  there  is  no  supply,  or  no  demand, 
at  another  rate;  just  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  goods. 
The  other  cause  of  fluctuation  is  the  confidence  felt 
in  the  borrowers  o-enerallv,  or  in  the  different  de- 
grees  of  risk  to  which  different  enterprises  are  ex- 
posed, or  the  same  at  different  times. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


431 


86.  Within  the  limits  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  pre-existing  conditions  of  interest  at  all,  the 
fluctuations  owing  to  supply  and  demand  stand  to 
those  owing  to  different  degrees  of  confidence  in  bor- 
rowers as  the  natural  value  of  commodities  stands  to 
the  causes  which  produce  the  oscillations  in  market 
value.  It  is  the  supply  and  demand  of  money  to  be 
lent  and  borrowed  which  must  be  first  considered. 
The  quantity  of  money  supplied  against  the  quantity 
demanded — this  must  be  broken  up  by  analysis,  re- 
ferred to  human  motives,  before  it  can  be  understood. 
The  rate  of  interest  is  not  ultimately  determined  by 
these  quantities,  but  by  the  causes  which  determine 
them. 

87.  What  then  is  interest,  and  for  what  is  it  paid? 
Mr.  Tooke  well  calls  it  the  "  net  profits  of  capital." 
It  is  analogous  to  wages  so  far  as  it  is  distinguished 
from  profits  in  being  fixed  beforehand ;  profits  being 
the  uncertain  residuum  of  total  income  or  gross  pro- 
fits, when  all  fixed  charges  are  paid.  But  it  is  dif- 
ferent from  wages  in  being  paid,  not  for  personal 
services,  but  for  the  services  of  the  money.  It  is 
therefore  more  strictly  analogous  to  rent,  in  the  wide 
sense  of  the  term ;  for  rent  is  the  sum  paid  for  the 
use  of  goods,  a,nd  interest  the  sum  paid  for  the  use 
of  money.  (See  §  95.  41).  Deducting  then  from 
gross  profits,  first,  the  fixed  sum  for  wages,  secondly, 
the  fixed  sum  for  rent,  thirdly,  the  uncertain  sum 
for  labour  of  superintendence  and  insurance  against 
losses,  which  uncertain  sum  is  the  residuum  called 
net  profits,  the  fixed  sum  for  the  use  of  money  is 
what  remains  under  the  name  of  Interest;  and,  being 
fixed,  it  is  of  course  paid  before  the  residuum  or  net 
profit  is  paid,  but  is  fixed  by  a  previous  calculation. 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 


.§96. 

Statical  l<),uic 

of  money. 


432  LOGIC  OP  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      Oil  the  part  of  the  industrialist,  of  what  both  gross 
—         and  net  profits  may  be  expected  to  be. 
Statical  logic  88.    Thouo^h  the  freedom  from   risk  as  well  as 

of  money.  i  i  r> 

from  trouble  of  superintendence  is  what  distinguishes 
the  interest  from  the  net  profits  of  money,  it  is  not 
possible  to  escape  all  risk  in  loans  of  money,  how- 
ever safe;  but  there  is  a  great  protection,  in  the  net 
profits  having  to  bear  that  risk  in  the  first  instance, 
even  to  their  whole  extent.  Hence  those  alone  are 
contented  with  pure  interest  for  their  money  who 
wish  or  are  compelled  to  incur  the  minimum  of  risk; 
such  as  trustees,  for  instance,  and  those  persons,  both 
private  capitalists  and  bankers,  who  wish  to  have 
their  surplus  capital  invested  at  interest,  but  in  forms 
in  which  it  may  be  realised  at  a  moment's  notice. 
Investments  in  shares  of  companies  produce  divid- 
ends which  are  partly  interest  and  partly  net  pro- 
fits. Only  that  part  which  is  interest  belongs  strictly 
speaking  to  the  money  market;  the  other  part,  as 
well  as  the  price  of  the  whole  share,  belongs  to  the 
goods  market,  as  already  pointed  out. 

89.  If  a  profit  is  to  be  made  out  of  the  pure  in- 
terest of  money,  it  must  come  from  the  mode  in 
which  the  money  lent  is  collected  and  brought  into 
the  hands  of  the  lender.  There  must  be  in  his  hands 
to  lend  a  greater  amount  of  money  than  his  own 
capital,  if  the  pure  interest  on  that  money  is  to  pay 
him  a  sum  equal  to  net  profits  at  the  rate  usual  in 
other  trades.  There  is  such  a  mode  of  collecting 
money,  and  such  a  way  of  making  profits ;  it  is  Bank- 
ing ;  the  principles  of  which  will  be  described  farther 
on.  But  private  capitalists  must  either  be  content 
with  pure  interest,  or  they  must  purchase  stock  or 
shares  which  pay  profits  as  well  as  interest,  or  they 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


433 


must  employ  their  capital  in  buying  and  selling  stock  ^f?''')^^- 
and  shares,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  interest,  but  for  ^— " 
the  sake  of  the  difference  in  their  price  when  resold ;    statical  logic 

,.,,.-,  Ill  ^^  money. 

in  the  second  case  partly,  and  ni  the  thn-d  case  wholly, 
becoming  dealers  in  commodities  in  the  goods  market, 
and  not  in  the  money  market,  notwithstanding  that 
the  commodities  dealt  with  are  interest-bearing  se- 
curities. We  have  then  in  the  money  market  to  do 
only  with  two  classes  of  persons  who  lend  money 
for  pure  interest,  first,  bankers,  including  those  bill 
brokers  or  discounters  who  have  bankers  for  their 
customers,  as  being  an  extension  of  the  system  of 
banking,  and  secondly,  buyers  of  stock  and  shares 
for  the  sake  of  the  interest,  and  not  of  the  profits  in- 
cluded in  the  dividends.  There  will  however  shortly 
appear  a  third  class  of  dealers  in  the  money  market, 
whose  operations  are  secondary  to  those  of  bankers, 
from  dealing  in  the  commodity  which  is  the  ultimate 
basis  of  banking  operations. 

90.  We  must  now  advert  to  a  further  distinction 
in  the  causes  influencing  the  rate  of  interest,  that 
between  money  lent  for  permanent  investments  and 
money  lent  for  short  periods.  Those  who  lend  money 
for  permanent  investments  include  not  only  trustees 
and  others  who  are  content  with  pure  interest,  but 
also  many  of  those  who  wish  for  profits  as  well  as 
interest.  Bankers  and  bill  discounters  on  the  other 
hand  are  lenders  for  short  periods.  The  demand  for 
stock  and  shares  as  permanent  investments  of  money 
varies  very  much  less  than  the  demand  for  them  as 
investments  for  short  periods ;  it  varies  with  the 
slowly  changing  number  and  wealth  of  the  classes 
who  are  said  to  live  on  their  means.  The  fluctua- 
tions in  their  price  arise  chiefly  from  the  demand  for 

VOL.  11.  FF 


434 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§9(5. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


them  as  investments  for  short  periods.  The  habitual 
lenders  on  permanent  investments  are  a  class  which 
varies  but  slowly  in  numbers;  while  the  number  of 
those  who  lend  for  short  periods  varies  with  every 
change  in  the  goods  market,  whether  in  home  or 
foreign  transactions.  A  great  effect  is  produced  in 
the  market  for  stock  and  shares,  which  are  the  kind 
of  investments  purchased  by  those  who  lend  for  long 
periods,  by  fluctuations  in  the  demand  and  supply  of 
loans  for  short  periods,  but  the  demand  and  supply  of 
loans  for  short  periods  is  comparatively  uninfluenced 
by  the  price  of  stock  and  shares.  No  one  buys  stock 
and  shares,  for  the  sake  of  the  interest  only,  and  for 
short  periods  of  investment,  unless  he  has  a  supply 
of  money  on  his  hands  for  which  he  has  difficulty  in 
finding  any  more  profitable  employment,  or  for  the 
sake  of  employing,  with  some  return,  money  which 
he  is  compelled  to  keep  where  it  can  be  realised  in 
case  of  a  sudden  emergency. 

91.  Having  then  previously  eliminated  from  con- 
sideration all  classes  of  lenders  but  bankers  and  buy- 
ers of  stock  and  shares  for  the  sake  of  interest,  we 
may  now  eliminate  also  one  part  of  the  latter  class, 
those  who  lend  on  permanent  investments,  leaving 
only  the  money  employed  by  bankers  to  be  con- 
sidered as  exhibitmg  the  variations  which  belong 
strictly  to  the  market  rate  of  interest.  The  differ- 
ent classes  who  lend  for  profits,  or  buy  in  order  to 
make  profit  on  the  resale,  are  eliminated  on  the 
ground  that  these  operations  belong  to  the  goods 
market  and  not  to  the  money  market;  and  those 
who  lend  for  pure  interest,  but  for  long  periods,  on 
the  ground  that  their  operations  have  no  effect  on 
the  fluctuations  of  the  market  rate.     And  the  reason 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


435 


for  eliminating  tliem  is,  that  it  is  not  here  proposed 
to  follow  up,  or  weigh  against  each  other  in  their 
efficacy,  all  the  causes  which  may  produce  variations 
in  the  rate  of  interest,  but  only  to  analyse  the  me- 
chanism of  the  phenomena  of  the  money  market  in 
its  strict  sense. 

92.  The  money  in  the  hands  of  bankers  consti- 
tutes, then,  the  loanable  money  capital  of  a  country, 
the  supply  which,  compared  with  the  demand  from 
time  to  time,  governs  the  rate  of  interest.  This  fund 
however  consists  not  only  in  the  capital  belonging  to 
the  bankers  themselves  and  in  the  deposits  of  their 
customers,  but  in  both  of  these  multiplied,  as  it  were, 
by  credit,  in  the  manner  which  will  shortly  be  de- 
scribed. Now  the  very  condition  of  this  multipli- 
cation of  money  by  credit  consists  in  the  reserve  of 
bullion  or  coin,  which  enables  the  banker  to  meet 
his  engagements  with  specie.  The  basis  of  his  opera- 
tions is  bullion,  and  upon  the  fluctuations  in  the 
amount  of  bullion  in  the  country  from  time  to  time 
depend  the  fluctuations  of  the  credit  which  he  enjoys 
and  the  amount  which  he  can  aflbrd  to  lend.  But 
bullion,  as  we  have  seen,  is  thrown  upon  or  with- 
drawn from  the  money  market  in  accordance  with 
its  abundance  or  deficiency,  as  it  is  imported  or  ex- 
ported in  payment  of  the  balance  of  indebtedness 
arising  in  the  goods  market,  upon  transactions  of  all 
kinds.  Here  is  the  same  phenomenon  at  which  we 
arrived  in  par.  77,  when  examining  the  phenomena 
of  the  goods  market,  and  here  is  the  point  of  reaction 
upon  the  goods  market  from  the  money  market.  Bul- 
lion, which  is  useless  in  the  goods  market  although 
its  transmission  is  the  final  issue  of  the  transactions 
ia  that  market,  and  sums  up  as  it  were  their  results, 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

tical  1 

of  money. 


Statical  logic 


436 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  TI. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


becomes  of  immense  importance  in  the  money  market, 
not  only  as  a  commodity  bearing  interest,  but  as  the 
basis  of  credit  transactions  to  many  times  its  own 
amount. 

93.  It  is  from  its  character  as  a  commodity  bear- 
ing interest  th?.t  the  secondary  operations,  mentioned 
in  par,  89,  arise.  These  consist  in  import  and  ex- 
port of  bullion,  bought  and  sold  by  bills  created  for 
the  purpose,  when  the  rate  of  interest  or  discount 
differs  sufficiently  between  any  two  countries  to  cover 
the  cost  of  transmitting  the  bullion.  Bullion  is  im- 
ported or  exported  for  sale  because  the  rate  of  in- 
terest is  higher  in  one  country  than  in  another  ;  and 
these  so  called  'bullion  operations'  belong  to  the 
money  market,  and  not  like  the  purchase  and  sale  of 
bills  to  the  goods  market  (par.  83),  because  the  profit 
is  made  from  the  difference  between  the  rates  of  in- 
terest in  the  two  countries,  and  not  from  any  differ- 
ence in  the  value  of  the  commodity  dealt  with,  its 
scarcity  or  abundance,  independent  of  what  that  rate 
may  be.  The  supplies  of  bullion  thus  transmitted 
are  not  only  governed  by  the  existing  rates  of  in- 
terest, but  also  react  upon  them,  continuing  till  these 
rates  are  brought  down  to  what  we  may  call  their 
specie  point,  when  the  transmission  becomes  unpro- 
fitable. 

94.  The  loanable  money  capital,  based  upon  these 
supplies  of  bullion,  and  the  rate  of  interest  resulting 
from  the  supply  compared  to  the  demand  for  it,  are 
analogous  to  the  quantities  and  prices  of  commodities 
in  the  goods  market  which  are  the  condition  of  the 
speculation  founded  on  them,  as  remarked  in  j)ar.  69; 
from  which  speculation,  together  with  the  previous 
quantities  and  prices,  the  subsequent  quantities  and 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


437 


prices  of  commodities  result.     So  also  it  is  in  the      ^^^'^y " 
money  market.     The  present  supply  of  money  lent         ~ 
and  the  present  rate  of  interest  are  the  condition,  at    statical  logic 

i  _  _  of  mouey. 

the  beginning  of  any  period,  upon  which  speculation 
m  the  supply  of  money  for  interest  is  founded ;  and 
this  speculation  again  determines  the  supply  of  money 
and  the  rate  of  interest  at  the  end  of  the  period. 
The  speculation  however  is  conducted  by  bankers, 
who  are  the  dealers  in  the  commodity  money,  the 
commodity  of  the  money  market.  But  the  business 
of  the  money  market,  though  thus  precisely  analogous 
to  that  of  the  goods  market,  is  exposed  to  dangerous 
vicissitudes  of  a  kind  from  which  that  of  the  goods 
market  is  exempt.  It  is  exposed  to  the  full  weight 
of  the  changes  in  the  quantity  of  bullion  imported  or 
exported,  which  result  from  operations  in  the  goods 
market  but  directly  affect  the  money  market  only, 
changes  which  cannot  be  prevented,  and  the  effects 
of  which  therefore  must  be  constantly  watched  and 
provided  for.  The  question  then  is,  in  what  way  do 
bankers  become  the  conductors  of  speculation  in  the 
money  market. 

95.  Hitherto  the  value  of  money  in  the  money 
market  has  been  considered  in  connection  with  its 
quantity  and  value  in  the  goods  market ;  but,  when 
we  enter  on  the  question  of  Banking,  it  becomes  re- 
quisite to  consider  the  relations  of  the  different  forms 
of  currency  towards  each  other  ;  in  doing  which, 
however,  abstraction  may  still  be  made  of  differences 
in  their  value,  or  depreciation  of  one  Avith  respect  to 
another.  So  long  as  notes,  or  public  credit  currency, 
are  de  facto  convertible,  they  are  of  equal  value  with 
bullion  or  with  coin;  but  a  specific  demand  for  bul- 
lion, to  meet  payments  abroad  for  which  bullion  is 


438  LOOIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


of  money. 


Book  II.      the  oiily  currency,  will  cause  notes  to  be  returned 
—         to  the  bank  in  exchano;e  for  bullion.     The  cliiference, 

§  9G.  .  .  .  ^  .  .  ' 

Statical  logic  which  is  uiost  important,  is  one  of  function  and  not 
of  value.  So,  in  transactions  at  home,  bills  which 
are  private  credit  currency  may  be  of  equal  valine 
with  notes  or  coin,  but,  if  there  is  a  function  which 
notes  or  coin  alone  can  perform,  notes  or  coin  \vill 
be  demanded  in  payment  of  bills  ;  and  this  happens, 
supposing  notes  to  be  perfectly  convertible,  whenever 
a  contraction  of  the  private  credit  currency  takes 
place,  in  consequence  of  a  contraction  of  credit.  Again 
the  difference  is  one  of  function,  not  of  value,  and 
again  it  produces  a  specific  demand  for  one  kind  of 
currency.  Res  ad  triarios  rediit.  The  amount  of  the 
private  credit  currency  fluctuates  with  the  amount 
of  the  business  which  it  is  required  to  perform ;  it  is 
created  by  that  business,  and  destroyed  when  that 
business  is  concluded.  But  when  the  transactions  of 
this  business  begin  to  lessen  in  amount,  the  amount 
of  new  creations  of  documents  of  private  credit  cur- 
rency will  be  less  than  the  amount  of  them  already 
existing,  which  they  would  otherwise  exchange  for 
and  replace ;  bills  will  not  be  renewed,  but  must  be 
paid.  Hence,  in  order  to  conclude  the  transactions, 
another  kind  of  currency  will  be  required.  Notes  or 
coin  are  in  specific  demand,  as  soon  as  speculation 
has  begun  to  flag. 

96.  Such  are  the  conditions  of  the  commodity, 
money,  in  which  bankers  deal.  What  is  the  mode 
in  which  they  deal  with  it?  The  funds  in  the  hands 
of  bankers  arise  from  two  sources  besides  their  own 
realised  money  capital,  first,  the  deposits  of  realised 
capital  by  customers,  second,  the  deposits  which  they 
create  in  favour  of  customers  when  they  discount  their 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


439 


bills.  Mr.  Macleod  thus  defines  a  banker :  "  A  Banker 
is  a  trader  who  buys  money,  or  money  and  debts,  by 
creating  other  debts,"  Theory  and  Practice  of  Bank- 
ing, Vol.  i.  p.  110,  2nd  edit.  The  banker  buys  the 
deposits  of  both  kinds  with  his  credit ;  that  is,  he 
gives  a  credit  in  his  books  to  the  person  who  deposits 
money  with  him,  and  he  does  the  same  to  the  person 
who  sells  him  bills,  for  the  amount  of  the  bills  minus 
the  discount  which  he  charo;es,  creditin";  him  with 
the  one  and  debiting  him  with  the  other.  Both  kinds 
of  deposits  may  then  be  drawn  against,  or  transferred, 
by  Cheques,  at  the  will  of  the  depositor.  All  these 
transactions  may  be  performed,  and  the  latter  kind 
must  be  performed,  by  the  creation  of  private  credit 
currency.  It  is  only  the  deposits  of  money  by  cus- 
tomers, and  the  private  capital  of  the  banker  himself, 
which  may  exist  in  the  form  of  coin  or  notes.  The 
deposits  belonging  to  the  customers,  the  cheques  which 
are  used  to  draw  upon  or  transfer  them,  and  the  bills 
which  belong  to  the  banker,  are  all  forms  of  private 
credit  currency. 

97.  In  what  then  does  the  profit  of  the  banker 
consist?  It  consists  in  the  sums  which  he  deducts 
as  discount  on  the  bills.  When  the  acceptors  of 
these  bills  pay  their  acceptances,  they  pay  the  whole 
amount,  against  which  the  banker  has  granted  a  credit 
or  deposit  for  the  amount  minus  the  discount.  He 
therefore  receives  this  difference,  and  also  obtains  the 
use  of  so  much  of  the  deposit  as  may  remain  not 
drawn  out  by  the  depositor,  which  he  may  use  for 
the  purpose  of  discounting  other  bills  and  granting 
new  deposits.  His  OAvn  capital,  and  also  the  money 
actually  deposited  by  customers  against  credits  granted 
to  them,  have  been  used  already  in  the  same  way. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 
of  money. 


440 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monev. 


There  is  another  way  also  in  which  he  may  make 
profit ;  he  may  pay  the  sums  drawn  out  by  depositors 
in  his  own  notes,  which  is  meeting  liabiUties  of  one 
sort  by  liabilities  of  another  sort,  thus  deferring  the 
time  and  lessening  the  amount  which  would  other- 
wise have  to  be  met  by  payment  of  coin. 

98.  The  banker  is  liable  at  any  moment  to  be 
called  upon  to  meet  his  engagements  in  coin.  And 
his  profits  evidently  depend,  apart  from  the  rate  of 
interest,  upon  the  amount  of  those  transactions  from 
which  his  liabilities  arise.  The  practical  question  for 
him  accordingly  is,  upon  how  small  a  basis  of  coin 
he  can  erect  a  given  superstructure  of  liabilities,  or 
how  large  a  superstructure  of  liabilities  he  can  with 
safety  erect  upon  a  given  basis  of  coin.  This  is  the 
temptation  to  that  speculation,  and  the  mode  in  which 
it  is  possible,  which  is  the  chief  part  of  the  specula- 
tion in  the  money  market.  The  dangers  to  Avhich 
this  speculation  is  exposed  are  of  two  kinds;  the  first, 
which  is  inseparable  from  it,  arises  from  the  demand 
for  credit  on  bills  which  are  either  unsound  in  them- 
selves, or  created  to  too  large  an  amount,  in  conse- 
quence of  overtrading  in  the  goods  market,  and  could 
not  be  avoided  even  if  the  amount  of  their  reserves 
were  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  bankers ;  the 
second,  which  affects  the  amount  of  the  reserves 
themselves,  arises  from  the  varying  amount  of  bul- 
lion in  the  country,  owing  to  the  fluctuations  of 
foreign  trade.  By  the  system  of  banking  which  pre- 
vails in  this  country,  by  the  country  banks  keeping 
their  reserves  in  the  hands  of  London  bankers,  and 
the  London  bankers  keeping  theirs  in  the  Bank  of 
England,  the  only  reserve  in  bullion  which  supports 
the  bank  money  of  the  whole  country  exists  in  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


441 


vaults  of  the  Bank  of  England.  This  bullion  reserve 
accordingly  has  not  only  to  meet  the  requirements 
which  may  arise  from  insecurity  of  credit  at  home, 
but  also  to  bear  the  pressure  of  drains  of  bullion  from 
abroad. 

99.  The  effect  of  a  great  and  continued  diminu- 
tion of  the  bullion  reserve  in  the  Bank  of  England, 
to  meet  a  foreign  drain,  is  to  contract  the  advances 
made  by  bankers  throughout  the  country,  which  may 
often  cause  a  great  destruction  of  wealth;  and  the 
smaller  the  proportion  of  bullion  to  the  credit  cur- 
rency built  upon  it,  the  greater  will  be  this  effect 
upon  the  deposits  created  by  granting  discounts,  in 
order  to  preserve  the  same  proportion  between  the 
reserve  and  the  deposits.  This  is  well  shown  in  a 
pamphlet  by  Mr.  Thomas  Joplin,  published  in  1841, 
entitled  The  Cause  and  Cure  of  our  Financial  Em- 
barrassments, pp.  30-39.  And  this  is  the  explanation 
of  the  fact,  that  the  greatest  pressures  in  the  money 
market  have  always  been  produced  by  the  coin- 
cidence of  a  drain  of  bullion  from  abroad  with  the 
close  of  a  period  of  undue  speculation  and  overtrading 
at  home.  It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  avoid 
all  such  great  and  sudden  contractions  of  banking 
credit,  which  are  equivalent  to  so  much  destruction 
of  real  wealth ; .  and  it  would  seem  that  the  only  way 
to  avoid  them  is  by  keeping  an  ample  reserve  of  bul- 
lion in  the  Bank  of  England,  and  preventing  its  too 
great  diminution  by  adjusting  the  rate  of  discount  by 
the  foreign  exchanges,  as  urged  by  Mr.  Tooke  in  his 
History  of  Prices,  Vol.  iii.  pp.  185-9.  And  it  might, 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  materially  aid  in  keeping  up 
such  a  reserve,  if  the  Bank  of  England  were  to  adopt 
the  plan  of  purchasing  gold  at  a  premium  on  the 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


442 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II.      present  Bank  price,  when  it  was  scarce,  and  at  a  dis- 
count from  that  price  when  it  was  abundant,  accord- 


Ch.  IV, 


§9(5, 


Statical  logic   iug  to  the  suggcstioii  advocated  by  Mr.  Seyd  in  his 
moDey.      g^^j^Qj^  q^t^^  Forcigu  Exchangcs,  Part  iii.  Chap.  ii. 
Bullion  and  Rates  of  Discount. 

TOO.  But  to  return  to  the  method  of  Banking. 
The  deposits  of  money  by  customers,  bought  by 
credits  to  their  account  in  the  banker's  books,  are,  if 
we  put  aside  for  simplicity's  sake  his  own  capital,  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  business.  To  take  Mr.  Mac- 
leod's  example,  given  at  pp.  116-118  of  the  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Banking,  Yol.  i.,  we  will  suppose 
these  deposits  to  be  .£10,000,  against  which  liabilities 
are  created  to  the  same  amount.  The  first  thing 
which  the  banker  does  is  to  set  apart,  say,  £1000  of 
this  in  cash,  which  he  keeps  in  his  till,  to  meet  the 
current  demands  of  the  depositors.  He  has  then 
£9000  to  trade  with.  He  keeps  the  whole  of  this 
as  a  Reserve,  either  in  his  own  coffers,  or  with  some 
other  Bank,  or  in  some  place  where  he  can  command 
it  at  a  moment's  notice,  and  he  buys  bills  to  the 
amount  of,  say,  £40,000,  by  creating  dej^osits  or  issu- 
ing his  own  notes  to  the  amount  of  £39,200,  de- 
ducting the  difference  as  discount  on  the  £40,000, 
supposing  the  rate  to  be  8  per  cent,  per  annum,  and 
the  bills  to  be  at  three  months.  The  amount  which 
is  kept  to  meet  current  payments,  here  supposed  to 
be  one  tenth  of  the  first  kind  of  deposits,  is  deter- 
mined by  the  experience  of  what  sums  are  usually 
drawn  out,  and  what  sums  are  usually  paid  in,  as  ad- 
ditions to  the  deposits,  day  by  day.  And  the  amount 
of  de^^osits  which  it  is  safe  to  create  against  bills, 
compared  to  the  reserve,  here  supposed  to  be  in  the 
proportion  of  £40,000  to  £9000,  is  determined  in  the 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


443 


same  way.     The  banker's  accounts  in  the  case  sup- 
posed would  then  stand  thus  : 


Liabilities  or  DeiDosits. 
£10,000 
39,200 


£49,200 


Assets. 
Cash    .     .     .    £1,000 
Eeserve    .     .       9,000 
BiUs    .     .     .     40,000 


£50,000 


And  his  profit  consists  in  the  difference,  £800,  which 
being  reaped  four  times  in  the  year,  the  bills  being 
at  three  months,  is  £3200,  or  eight  per  cent,  on 
£40,000. 

TO  I.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  banker 
issues  his  own  notes  or  creates  liabilities,  in  exchange 
for  the  deposits  of  money  and  bills  discounted ;  for 
the  liabilities  may  be  drawn  upon  as  soon  as  created, 
and  the  notes  are  only  liabilities,  so  long  as  they 
remain  in  the  hands  of  the  public,  and  are  not  pre- 
sented for  payment  in  coin.  The  advantage  of  is- 
suing notes  is  in  issuing  them  against  drafts  upon 
deposits.  It  also  makes  no  difference,  so  far  as  the 
nature  of  the  transaction  is  concerned,  whether  the 
banker  uses  his  own  capital  or  deposits  of  the  first 
kind,  as  the  basis  of  his  transactions  in  creating  de- 
posits of  the  second  kind ;  for  in  both  cases  he  keeps 
the  whole  amount  as  reserve,  either  in  his  own  hands, 
or  in  the  shape  of  a  deposit  with  another  bank,  or 
in  the  shape  of  a  deposit  with  bill  brokers,  or  invested 
in  public  securities ;  in  all  cases  having  the  command 
of  the  money  at  any  moment.  He  then  creates  other 
liabilities,  on  this  basis,  to  the  extent  of  about  four 
times  its  amount,  or,  in  the  instance  given  by  Mr. 
Macleod,  in  the  proportion  of  40  to  9. 

I02.  The  general  character  or  effect  of  these  bank- 


BOOK   II. 

Ch.  IV. 

§  96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


444 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


c^f'iv  *      ^^&  transactions  is  that  of  a  loan  of  capital,  part  of 
which,  and  usually  the  larger  part,  is  itself  borrowed. 


§96. 


sta'icai  logic    "Yhe  deposits  of  the  first  kind  are  money  borrowed, 

01  money.  i  *' 

the  deposits  of  the  second  kind  are  money  lent,  by 
the  banker.  And  the  term  loan  is  applied  to  all 
transactions  where  money  is  given  in  exchange  for 
the  return  of  an  equal  sum  at  a  future  time,  with 
interest  for  its  use.  The  term  is  too  simple  and  too 
useful,  as  a  term  of  denotation,  to  be  given  up ;  but 
it  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  a  denotation,  or  in 
my  phrase  a  term  of  second  intention  only ;  that  it 
requires  an  analysis  of  the  transactions,  and  a  defi- 
nition of  them  by  terms  of  first  intention,  in  order 
to  be  understood.  Now,  as  Mr.  Macleod  well  shows, 
the  loans  in  question  must  be  analysed  into  the  sim- 
ple exchanges  of  which  they  consist ;  they  must  be 
conceived,  not  as  loans,  but  as  purchases  and  sales 
of  debts ;  and  only  in  this  manner  are  they  intelli- 
gible themselves,  or  supply  an  explanation  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  money  market.  Exchanges,  value 
against  value,  are  the  minima,  the  atoms,  of  the  whole 
science  of  political  economy ;  and  no  transactions  are 
explained,  until  they  are  reduced  by  analysis  into 
the  exchanges,  value  against  value,  of  which  they 
consist.  To  have  done  this  in  the  case  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  money  market  is  the  great  service 
rendered  to  the  science  by  Mr.  Macleod.  My  own 
o1)ligations  to  his  work  on  Banking  can  hardly  be 
overstated.  But  I  do  not  follow  him  in  wishino^  to 
dispense  altogether  with  the  term  loan,  in  describing 
banking  transactions.  It  is  true  that  the  money  de- 
posited with  a  banker  becomes  his  property,  uncon- 
trollable by  the  depositors;  and  it  is  true  also  that 
the  money  which  he  advances  in  discounting  bills  is 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


445 


repaid  to  him,  not  by  tlie  persons  to  whom  he  ad- 
vances it,  but  by  the  acceptors  of  the  bills.  But  this 
only  shows  that  the  transactions  in  question  require 
a  further  analysis,  that  their  character  as  exchanges 
of  the  use  of  money  for  interest,  and  of  interest  for 
the  use  of  money,  is  distinguishable  into  more  ex- 
chano-es  than  one,  or  into  exchanges  between  more 
parties  than  two ;  but  it  does  not  show  that  no  term 
is  needed  to  characterise  these  transactions,  as  cases 
of  interest  purchasing  the  use  of  money,  apart  from 
the  number  of  exchanges  and  number  of  parties  into 
which  they  may  be  analysed.  It  appears  to  me,  that 
we  have  here  another  case  exemplifying  the  nature 
and  use  of  the  distinction  between  what  I  have  called 
first  and  second  intentions.  To  dispense  with  the 
term  Loan  is  like  Comte's  attempt  to  dispense  with 
the  term  Cause. 

103.  Having  thus  briefly  analysed  the  method  of 
banking,  we  are  in  a  position  to  return  to  the  point 
departed  from  in  par.  94,  and  to  consider  the  supply 
and  demand  of  money,  with  its  resulting  rate  of  in- 
terest, at  the  beginning  of  a  period,  and  the  specula- 
tion which  operates  upon  it,  producing  a  different 
state  of  demand  and  supply,  and  a  different  rate  of 
interest,  at  the  end  of  it.  The  supply  of  money  con- 
sists of  deposits  or  liabilities  of  the  second  kind,  cre- 
ated by  bankers  in  discounting  bills;  and  it  arises 
from  two  ultimate  sources,  first,  the  influx  of  bullion 
from  abroad,  secondly,  the  deposits  of  the  first  kind 
with  bankers,  together  with  their  own  capital.  But 
the  supply  of  bullion  from  abroad  operates  in  two 
ways;  first,  it  is  sold  by  the  importers  to  the  Bank 
of  England,  where  it  increases  the  reserve  of  bullion, 
and  consequently  the  amount  of  liabilities  which  may 


Book  H. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


446 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


with  safety  be  created  by  discounting  bills ;  and  se- 
condly, the  money  received  for  it  is  deposited  in 
banks,  in  the  shape  of  deposits  of  the  first  kind.  The 
bullion  is  thus  emjDloyed  twice  over,  once  by  its 
owners,  once  by  the  Bank ;  and  not  only  twice,  for, 
in  the  use  made  of  it  by  the  Bank,  it  is  not  the  bul- 
lion, but  many  times  its  amount,  that  is  lent  on  the 
basis  of  it.  Its  owners  sell  it  to  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land, and  then  deposit  the  notes,  which  they  receive 
in  exchange,  with  their  own  bankers,  where  they 
again  become  a  source  of  deposits  of  the  second  kind. 
"  In  ordinary  banking"  says  Mr.  Macleod  "  both  par- 
ties have  the  complete  use  of  the  capital.  The  cus- 
tomer lends  his  money  to  the  banker,  and  yet  has 
the  free  use  of  it — the  banker  employs  that  money  in 
promoting  trade ;  upon  the  strength  of  its  being  de- 
posited with  him,  he  buys  debts  with  his  '  promises 
to  pay,'  and  the  person  who  sells  the  debt  has  the 
free  use  of  the  very  coin  which  the  banker  has  the 
same  right  to  demand."  Theory  and  Practice  of 
Banking,  Vol.  i.  p.  127,  2nd  edit.  The  bullion  be- 
comes a  deposit  of  the  first  kind,  upon  which  to 
build  deposits  of  the  second  kind,  and  also  remains, 
as  a  bulHon  reserve,  to  secure  this  building,  and 
measure  the  extent  to  which  it  is  safe.  Deposits  of 
the  first  kind  need  no  explanation ;  their  amount  de- 
pends, as  the  banker's  own  capital  also  does,  upon 
the  amount  of  money  already  realised  in  the  country. 
Such  is  the  nature  of  the  supply  of  money  in  the 
money  market. 

104.  The  demand  for  it,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
sists in  the  demand  of  industrialists  for  advances  on 
discount,  for  the  creation  in  their  favour  of  deposits 
of  the   second  kind.     And  this  demand  depends  on 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


447 


the  prospects  of  profit,  or  the  mtensity  of  speculation, 
in  the  goods  market.  It  is  also  assisted  by  the  de- 
mand of  bankers  for  interest  on  a  laroer  sum,  com- 
pared  with  their  reserves,  which  are  its  basis.  The 
bankers  join  in  the  demand,  for  which  they  alone 
provide  the  supply;  a  circumstance  which  distin- 
guishes this  from  every  other  trade.  And  this  is 
what  was  intended  by  saying  above,  that  the  specu- 
lation in  the  money  market  was  '  conducted  by  bank- 
ers,' namely,  that  they  can  create  a  supply  to  meet 
a  demand  which  is  partly  their  own,  to  meet  their 
own  demand  for  loanable  capital,  when  it  is  de- 
manded also  by  their  customers.  The  degree  to 
which  they  yield  to  this  demand  by  creating  deposits 
of  the  second  kind,  the  amount  of  these  deposits  in 
comparison  with  the  reserves  their  basis,  which  they 
are  induced  to  create,  is  the  speculation  in  the  money 
market  which  was  said,  in  par.  94,  to  operate  upon 
the  supply  and  demand  for  money,  and  upon  the 
resulting  rate  of  interest,  existing  at  the  beginning 
of  a  period,  and  to  determine  these  quantities  and 
this  rate  at  the  end  of  it. 

105.  The  point,  then,  at  which  speculation  reacts 
upon  supply  and  demand,  and  upon  the  rate  of  in- 
terest, is  the  point  where  the  demand  is  identical 
with  the  supply,  where  it  depends  on  the  will  of  one 
class  of  men  to  contract  or  extend  both  at  once.  But 
bankers  have  no  control  over  the  amount  of  deposits 
of  the  first  kind,  and  no  direct  control  over  the 
amount  of  bullion  in  the  country,  which  is  their  basis 
of  operations ;  they  have  control  only  over  the  extent 
of  the  use  which  they  will  make  of  this  basis.  The 
amount  of  bullion  in  the  country,  depending  in  the 
first  instance  upon  the  balances  of  international  pay- 


BooK  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monev. 


448 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Cn.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


ments  of  all  kinds,  may  be  decreased,  if  superabund- 
ant, by  private  speculators  at  home,  who  export  it 
for  investment  abroad,  or,  if  deficient,  increased  by 
private  speculators  abroad,  who  send  it  hither  for 
investment,  if  that  should  offer  them  a  profit.  But 
this  export  and  import  of  bullion  depends  upon  the 
rate  of  interest  at  home  compared  with  the  rates  in 
different  foreign  countries,  rates  of  interest  which  are 
determined,  in  the  first  instance,  by  the  speculation 
of  bankers,  in  other  countries  as  well  as  at  home, 
by  their  creating  or  refusing  to  create  new  supplies 
of  money.  The  first  mover  in  the  reaction  of  specu- 
lation upon  quantities  and  rates  is  the  banker;  the 
second  is  the  private  speculator,  who  exports  or  im- 
ports bullion  for  sale  to  bankers. 

1 06.  Bullion  accordingly  has  a  value,  sometimes 
expressed  as  its  price,  in  a  third  market,  the  money 
market.  It  has  a  price  proper,  in  other  forms  of 
currency,  as  shown  in  par.  2  5  et  seqq. ;  it  has  a  value 
in  the  commodity  market,  as  shown  in  par.  59  et 
seqq. ;  and  it  has  a  value  in  the  money  market,  which 
is  interest,  or  the  price  of  its  use,  when  exported  or 
imported  for  investment  in  securities  from  country 
to  country.  (See  par.  53).  When  the  price  of  gold 
is  said  to  rise  above  the  mint  price,  we  must  ask 
whether  this  rise  is  due  to  depreciation  of  the  coin 
or  paper  currency  in  which  it  is  paid  for,  or  is  the 
price  paid  for  the  use  of  the  coin  or  paper  given  for 
the  bullion,  that  is,  as  interest,  and  therefore  owing 
to  the  rate  of  interest  being  higher  than  in  other 
countries,  interest  which  bullion  may  earn  by  being 
imported  in  exchange  for  bills.  "  If  the  rate  of  dis- 
count in  London  is  3  per  cent,  and  that  in  Paris  is 
6  per  cent.,  the  simple  meaning  of  that  is  that  gold 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  449 

may  be  bought  for  3  per  cent,  in  London,  and  sold       c"f'^iv' 
at  6  per  cent,  in  Paris.     But  the  expense  of  sending         — 
it  from  one  to  the  other  does  not  exceed  i  per  cent.,    statical  logic 

*   ••-  'of  money. 

consequently  it  leaves  2^  or  2^  per  cent,  profit  on 
the  operation.  The  natural  consequence  immedi- 
ately follows,  gold  flies  from  London  to  Paris,  and 
the  drain  will  not  cease  until  the  rates  of  discount 
are  brought  within  a  certain  degree  of  equality.  It 
used  to  be  the  common  delusion  of  mercantile  men 
that  gold  was  only  sent  to  pay  a  balance  arising  from 
the  sale  of  goods,  and  that,  therefore,  it  must  cease 
of  itself  whenever  these  payments  were  made.  But 
this  is  a  profound  delusion.  When  the  rates  of  dis- 
count differ  so  much  as  is  supposed  above  between 
London  and  Paris,  persons  in  London  fabricate  bills 
upon  their  correspondents  in  Paris  for  the  express 
purpose  of  selling  them  in  London  for  cash,  which 
they  then  remit  to  Paris,  and  which  they  can  sell 
again  for  6  per  cent.  And  it  is  quite  evident  that 
this  drain  will  not  cease  so  long  as  the  difference  in 
the  rates  of  discount  is  maintained.  Moreover,  mer- 
chants in  Paris  immediately  send  over  their  bills  to 
be  discounted  in  London,  and,  of  course,  have  the 
cash  remitted  them."  Theory  and  Practice  of  Bank- 
ing, VoL  i.  p.  277,  2nd  edit. 

107.  This  cause  of  exporting  bullion  is  entirely 
independent  of  a  previous  state  of  indebtedness  be- 
tween the  two  countries.  It  is  true  that  the  same 
phenomenon  may  occur  from  a  balance  having  to  be 
paid,  as  soon  as  the  exchanges  reach  specie  point,  as 
explained  in  par.  37  et  seqq. ;  but  it  may  occur  also 
between  two  countries  which  have  had  no  previous 
dealings  with  each  other,  or  between  which  the  ex- 
changes would  otherwise  be  at  par,  from  the  rate  of 

VOL.  II.  GG 


450 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  11. 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 


Statical  logic 
cif  mouey. 


discount  beino;  hio;lier  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 
Gold  will  then  be  sent  solely  because,  being  a  com- 
modity in  the  money  market,  and  the  only  commo- 
dity in  the  money  market  which  is  also  ultimate 
international  currency,  and  purchasable  by  securities 
and  interest,  that  is,  by  bills,  a  given  quantity  of  it, 
sent  to  a  country  where  the  rate  of  interest  is  high, 
will  purchase  bills  to  a  larger  amount  than  it  could 
purchase  in  a  country  where  the  rate  of  interest  is 
low ;  for  the  gold  which  purchases  the  bills  is  their 
present  price,  and  a  high  rate  of  interest  or  discount 
means  that  the  present  price  of  a  bill  is  low,  com- 
pared to  the  amount  of  the  bill,  and  a  low  rate  of  in- 
terest or  discount  that  the  present  price  is  high.  And 
since  an  efflux  of  gold  from  this  cause  will  affect 
banking  reserves,  and  tend  to  compel  a  contraction 
of  credit,  it  is  requisite  that  banks  should  watch  its 
operation,  and  include  it  among  the  data  of  their 
own  speculation. 

io8.  As  the  cause  of  efflux  and  influx  of  bullion 
is  twofold,  arising  partly  from  indebtedness  on  trans- 
actions of  all  kinds  in  the  goods  market,  and  partly 
from  the  comparative  rates  of  interest,  so  also  is  the 
remedy.  A  drain  of  bullion  may  be  counteracted 
either  by  an  export  of  commodities,  or  of  interest- 
bearing  securities,  that  is,  by  action  on  the  goods 
market,  or  by  raising  the  rate  of  discount.  Raising 
the  rate  of  discount  operates  directly  on  the  price  of 
mterest- bearing  securities,  and  only  indirectly  on 
other  commodities  ;  for  interest -bearing  securities 
belong  to  both  markets,  goods  and  money  market, 
(par.  82).  But  bankers  can  only  apply  the  latter 
means  of  counteraction  directly,  namely,  that  of  rais- 
ing the  rate  of  discount;  but  this  acts  directly  on 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


451 


the  one,  indirectly  on  the  other,  of  the  two  branches 
of  the  goods  market.  It  acts  indirectly  upon  prices 
of  commodities  by  checking  production,  and  causing 
a  sale  of  commodities  already  produced.  Of  these 
two  means,  therefore,  the  only  one  which  bankers 
can  put  in  operation  is  to  raise  or  lower  the  rate  of 
discount,  unless  they  go  to  the  further  and  extreme 
measure  of  refusing  to  discount  at  all,  which  is  the 
very  evil  which  a  prudential  regulation  of  discounts 
is  intended  to  prevent. 

109.  The  regulation  of  bank  speculation  by  the 
bankers  themselves  is  the  point  at  which,  and  the 
means  by  which,  theory  and  analysis,  applied  to  the 
actually  existing  circumstances  at  any  time,  pass  into 
practice,  the  Logic  of  money  values  into  the  Art  of 
dealing  with  them.  Here  therefore  the  lojric  finds 
its  completion;  and  it  remains,  though  beyond  the 
present  purpose,  to  apply  its  analysis  to  practice,  by 
deduction  of  laws  less  general  and  more  immediately 
applicable  to  existing  circumstances.  Banking  opera- 
tions, or  more  briefly  Banking,  is  that  which  reacts 
upon  the  phenomena  of  money,  in  all  its  three  func- 
tions; they  are  its  condition  and  its  object-matter,  in 
and  upon  which  it  w^orks.  And  the  mode  in  which 
it  operates  upon  them  must  necessarily  be  determined 
by  the  views  and  opinions  held  as  to  their  nature  and 
organisation.  This  is  the  position  occupied  by  all 
state  laws  which  attempt  to  regulate  money  matters 
generally  or  as  a  whole;  Banking  is  the  point  at 
which  they  apply  their  lever.  This  for  instance  is 
the  position  occupied  by  the  Bank  Charter  Act  1844, 
Avhich  is  the  dispensation  under  which  we  are  still 
living.  It  would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present 
§  to  enter  into  any  detailed  discussion  of  that  Act ; 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monev. 


452 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV, 


§96. 


nor  perhaps  is  it  needful,  so  fully  has  it  been  exa- 
mined by  the  great  writers  on  these  questions.  Two 
statfcaiiogic  points  however  may  be  briefly  touched  on,  in  order 
not  so  much  to  apply  the  foregoing  analysis,  as  to 
show  its  applicability  to  the  case  in  question  ;  in 
doing  which  I  shall  found  my  remarks  chiefly  upon 
Sections  viii.  and  ix.  of  the  First  Part  of  Mr.  Gil- 
bart's  Practical  Treatise  on  Banking,  and  upon 
Chapter  xii.  of  Mr.  Macleod's  Theory  and  Practice 
of  Banking,  2nd  edit. 

no.  The  first  point  relates  to  the  position  of  the 
Bank  itself,  which  is  this :  the  greater  part  of  its  own 
capital  is  tied  up  in  public  securities  which  cannot 
be  realised  in  gold  at  pleasure,  and  yet  it  is  the  Bank 
which  is  the  ultimate  depositary  of  the  reserves  of 
other  banks,  and  from  which  all  the  bullion  required 
to  meet  a  foreign  drain  may  be  taken.  It  has  then, 
properly,  only  its  deposits,  deposits  of  the  first  kind, 
to  make  into  a  banking  reserve,  to  support  all  its 
issues  of  notes  and  other  deposits  of  the  second  kind. 
It  is  consequently  incumbent  on  it  to  consider  how 
much  of  these  reserves  it  must  keep  in  hand,  in  order 
to  support  the  amount  of  issues  and  other  deposits 
of  the  second  kind  which  it  wishes  to  create,  taking 
into  account  the  drains  of  bullion,  specifically,  which 
are  likely  from  time  to  time  to  act  upon  its  reserve, 
through  its  deposits  and  issues;  that  is,  not  only 
ordinary  banking  calls  upon  it,  but  also  extraordin- 
ary ones,  arising  from  the  foreign  transactions  of  the 
country  and  the  rates  of  interest  in  foreign  coun-. 
tries. 

III.  To  come  to  the  second  point,  the  Act  of 
1844  apparently  assumes  that  the  notes  of  the  Bank 
form  the  only  calls  to  be  provided  for,  and  not  also 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES, 


453 


its  other  deposits  of  the  second  kind.  It  requires  the 
Bank  to  keep  only  so  much  bulhon  as  is  equal  to 
the  amount  of  notes  issued,  counting  besides  the  pub- 
lic securities,  in  which  its  own  capital  is  invested, 
as  equal  to  so  much  bullion,  and  as  the  basis  of  an 
equal  amount  of  notes. 

112.  Now  the  distinction  between  notes  and  other 
deposits  of  the  second  kind  is  of  no  importance  what- 
ever, so  long  as  bullion  is  plentiful  and  credit  ex- 
panding; for  advances  may  be  made  by  creating 
deposits,  and  the  liabilities  increased  beyond  their 
just  proportion  to  the  bullion  reserve,  without  the 
issue  of  a  single  note.  But  when  credit  is  being  con- 
tracted, and  bullion  is  leaving  the  country,  these  de- 
posits may  be  drawn  upon  and  bullion  required  for 
the  draft;  and,  besides  this,  the  discounts  that  are 
required  will  be  required  in  the  form  of  notes,  in 
order  to  meet  engagements  which  can  no  longer  be 
met  by  any  form  of  private  credit  currency,  as  shown 
in  par.  95,  But  it  is  precisely  this  form  of  advances 
which  the  Bank  is  restricted  by  the  Act  from  grant- 
ing. It  may  therefore  be  compelled,  in  order  to 
secure  itself,  to  contract  its  advances  by  violently 
raising  the  rate  of  discount,  or  even  to  refuse  ad- 
vances altogether,  whereby  all  traders,  sound  and 
unsound  alike,  who  require  advances,  are  threatened 
with  ruin. 

113.  The  distinction  drawn  by  the  Act  between 
notes  and  other  liabilities  is  a  distinction  applicable 
to,  and  arising  in,  the  first  of  the  three  functions  of 
money,  and  is  unsound  when  employed  as  a  distinc- 
tion belonging  to  the  third,  the  money  market;  and 
the  truth  of  the  distinction,  though  the  application 
is  false,  is  that  which  affords  to  the  Bank  of  England 


liOOK  II. 

Ch.  IV. 

§  ''G. 

Statical  logic 

of  moiiev. 


454 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II, 
Ch.  IV. 


§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  money. 


a  theory  or  principle  which  apparently  justifies  them 
in  granting  discounts  and  creating  liabilities,  without 
paying  regard  to  the  amount  of  bullion  required  as 
their  basis,  to  meet  the  calls  which  may  be  made  in 
respect  of  them.  The  Bank  wants  a  reserve  suffi- 
cient to  secure  its  notes;  the  country  one  sufficient 
to  secure  all  its  liabilities,  without  violent  alterations 
in  the  rate  of  discount.  Without  some  theory  of 
the  kind,  the  Bank  would  be  too  much  hampered  in 
its  business,  by  so  much  of  its  own  capital  being  tied 
up  in  public  securities,  not  capable  of  realisation  at 
pleasure,  which  compels  it  to  make  the  greater  use 
of  its  deposits  of  the  first  kind.  It  is  quite  compre- 
hensible that  the  Act  should  be  a  favourite  with  the 
authorities  of  the  Bank ;  and  it  would  no  doubt  be 
so  also  with  the  commercial  public,  were  it  not  for 
its  ruinous  action  in  times  of  monetary  pressure  and 
contraction  of  credit.  But  it  can  be  no  favourite 
with  the  private  bankers  of  the  country,  who,  or- 
ganised themselves  on  sound  banking  principles,  find 
that  Bank,  upon  the  bullion  reserve  of  which  the 
security  of  their  own  reserves  depends,  governed,  in 
its  dealings  on  the  basis  of  that  reserve,  by  principles 
which  endanger  it  when  bullion  is  scarce,  and  lead 
to  its  over  employment  when  bulMon  is  plentiful;  the 
Bank  in  both  cases  competing  at  an  advantage  with 
private  bankers ;  for,  in  the  first  case,  the  rise  in  the 
Bank  rate  of  discount  compels  a  rise,  and  in  the  se- 
cond, the  lowering  of  the  Bank  rate  compels  a  lower- 
ing, in  the  market  rate,  that  is,  in  the  rates  at  which 
private  bankers  grant  discounts.  Banking  operations 
are  thus  governed,  in  this  country,  by  conflicting 
principles,  those  which  the  Act  applies  to  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Bank  of  England,  and  those  upon  which 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEXCES. 


455 


all  the  other  banks  m  the  country  are  administered. 
From  such  a  conflict  of  principles  nothing  but  con- 
fusion can  be  expected  to  result ;  and  it  is  ob- 
vious, in  such  a  case,  which  set  of  principles  must 
conform  to  the  other;  for  it  is  only  by  observing 
and  not  contravening  the  laws  which  govern  bank- 
ing under  all  circumstances  that  any  voluntary  modi- 
fication of  them,  such  as  the  Bank  Charter  Act  1844, 
can  be  successfully  established.  Natura  parendo  vin- 
citur. 

§  97.  I.  The  examination  of  the  phenomena  of 
practical  science  is  still  incomplete.  It  has  been 
shown  in  §  92  that  all  science,  whether  speculative 
or  practical,  has  an  aspect  in  which  it  is  art,  and 
again,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  that  every 
science  has  a  branch  or  branches  of  art  correspond- 
ing to  it,  which  are  arts  of  knowledge  if  they  depend 
on  a  speculative,  arts  of  action  if  they  depend  on  a 
practical  science.  Now  when  we  take  the  scientific 
aspect,  or,  what  is  equivalent,  the  sciences,  whether 
speculative  or  practical,  distinguished  from  the  arts 
depending  on  them,  we  find  that  this  aspect  has,  in 
every  case,  an  historical  aspect  coextensive  with  it, 
and  that  every  science  has  its  corresponding  history; 
a  history  not,  of  course,  of  the  progress  of  the  science 
itself,  but  of  the  object-matter  which  it  examines. 
The  speculative  and  physical  sciences  have  each  an 
object-matter  which  has  followed  a  certain  course  of 
change  or  development,  and  this  course  is  its  history. 
It  is  not  only  subject  to  certain  laws  of  coexistence 
and  sequence,  but  it  has  followed  a  certain  single 
course  in  conformity  to  those  laws.  To  examine 
into  this  actual  course  is  to  treat  the  object-matter 
of  the  science  by  the  historical  method,  as  it  is  called. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§96. 

Statical  logic 

of  monej'. 


§97. 
History. 


456  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  n.       the  metliocl  which  is  now  the  favourite  in  most  sub- 

Cii.  IV. 

r^  jects.  The  practical  sciences,  those  of  them  at  least 
History.  which  havc  been  considered  in  the  preceding  §§,  have 
also  obviously  their  historical  aspect  and  method; 
the  object-matter  of  all  of  them  has  followed  a  cer- 
tain single  course,  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  coex- 
istence and  sequence  attaching  to  their  phenomena. 
There  has  been,  for  instance,  a  certain  single  course 
followed  by  the  phenomena  of  ethic,  of  law,  of  politic ; 
of  religion,  of  poetry,  of  war,  of  diplomacy,  of  medi- 
cine, of  education,  of  language,  of  wealth. 

1.  The  difference  between  science  and  history  is 
accordingly  the  following.  History  is  the  discovery 
of  the  train  of  sequences  simple  or  complex,  that  is, 
of  coexistences  in  sequence,  which  has  actually  hap- 
pened ;  science  is  the  discovery  of  the  more  or  less 
general  laws  under  which  this  train  has  happened, 
or  of  which  it  is  a  case ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  the  his- 
tory stated  in  general  terms.  Science  is  therefore 
the  logic  of  history;  it  is  the  logic,  not  strictly  speak- 
ing of  the  facts  or  phenomena  which  it  arranges  into 
its  hierarchy  of  laws,  for  laws  are  nothing  but  these 
facts  or  phenomena  themselves,  and  science  their 
arrangement  in  a  hierarchy  or  logical  order;  but  it 
is  the  logic  of  the  facts  or  phenomena  as  they  have 
actually  happened,  that  is,  of  history ;  for,  since  the 
phenomena  or  facts  are  the  common  object-matter, 
and  the  only  object-matter  which  exists,  it  is  only 
by  distinguishing  the  method  of  history  from  that 
of  science  that  any  distinction  is  possible  between 
them.  Method  is  the  point  distinctive  between 
science  and  history,  just  as  it  is  also  between  meta- 
physical and  empirical  science.  The  phenomena 
arranged  statically,  and  in  order  of  increasing  com- 


LOGIC  OP  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES.  457 


plexity,  decreasing  generality,  to  follow  Comtc's  lu-      bookii. 
minous  distinction,  are  science ;  the  same  phenomena         -^—  ' 

S  97 

arranged  dynamically,  and  in  order  of  their  actual       History, 
occurrence  and  existence,  are  history. 

3.  It  follows,  as  Comte  also  clearly  saw,  that 
many  so-called  sciences  are  not  sciences  but  histories, 
those  phenomena  not  having  been  sufficiently  dis- 
covered of  which  their  phenomena  are  a  case ;  or,  in 
other  words,  a  sufficient  number  of  convergent  laws 
not  having  been  discovered  from  which  the  pheno- 
mena in  question  may  be  deduced.  Geology  is  an 
instance.  Geology  is  the  discovery  of  the  actual 
changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the  composition 
and  recomposition  of  the  materials  of  the  globe.  The 
convergent  laws,  or  general  phenomena,  under  which 
it  must  be  exhibited  as  a  case,  in  order  to  be  raised 
to  the  rank  of  a  science,  are  laws  of  mechanical,  phy- 
sical, chemical,  and  even  vital,  change  ;  including 
phenomena  so  variable  and  so  remote  from  obser- 
vation, as  to  postpone  indefinitely  the  hope  of  such 
a  reduction.  The  referring  the  phenomena  of  geo- 
logy, wherever  possible,  to  general  laws  makes  it 
a  scientific  study,  but,  if  prediction  is  taken  as  the 
criterion,  geology  must  renounce  her  claim  to  be  a 
science.  Prediction  is  the  proof  of  scientific  con- 
struction, because  the  laws,  under  which  the  phe- 
nomena in  question  are  a  case,  are  general,  that  is, 
equally  applicable  to  the  future  as  to  the  past,  and 
to  discoveries  yet  to  be  made  as  to  those  made  al- 
ready. And  of  course  it  is  not  intended  that  history 
is  not  scientific ;  the  contrary  is  evident  when  it  is 
called  an  aspect  of  science;  the  question  is  simply 
whether  this  or  that  group  of  phenomena  can  be 
arranged   in   a   hierarchical   order,   or   exhibited   as 


458  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      dependent  upon  phenomena  so  arranged,  to  such  an 
-^ '       extent  as  to  enable  a  prediction  of  their  principal 

History.  chaugcs.  The  c[uestion  being  always  partly  one  of 
decree,  it  is  clear  that  the  decision,  in  the  case  of 
any  history  claiming  to  be  a  science,  must  depend 
upon  the  opinion  of  scientific  men,  applying  the 
criterion  of  prediction,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
deduction.  History  and  the  historical  method  are 
always  the  pioneers  of  science  and  the  scientific  me- 
thod within  the  object-matter  common  to  both;  but 
scientific  priaciples  and  distinctions,  derived  from 
another  science,  may  be  applied  to  institute  and  di- 
rect historical  enquiry  from  the  first,  in  which  case 
they  perform  the  function  of  hypotheses. 

4.  When  we  turn  to  the  history  of  matters  of 
practice,  the  object-matter  of  the  practical  sciences, 
with  which  alone  we  are  here  concerned,  we  find  that 
history,  in  its  large  and  usual  sense,  is  the  historical 
aspect  of,  or  is  the  history  corresponding  to,  practical 
sciences  the  arts  of  which  are,  or  are  contained  under, 
ethic  and  politic.  History,  as  the  word  is  commonly 
used,  means  the  history  of  man  in  society.  Like 
the  general  or  architectonic  arts  of  ethic  and  politic, 
general  history  contains  under  it,  or  as  branches 
constituting  its  whole  range,  the  special  histories  of 
different  functions  and  activities  of  man,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  history  of  religions,  of  arts  and  sciences, 
of  laws  of  persons  and  property,  of  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth,  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  lansjuaoes ;  which  are  reducible  into  order  accord- 
ing  as  they  become  or  show  aptitude  for  becoming 
sciences.  They  take  their  classification  from  that 
of  the  arts  of  action.  The  list  of  special  branches 
of  history,  within  each  of  which  other  minor  branches 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  459 

may  be  ranged,  is  accordingly  the  same  as  the  Ust       ^}?^\y' 
of  special  practical  sciences  or  arts.  — 

5.  When  the  science  or  philosophy  of  history  is  History. 
spoken  of,  the  phrase  can  mean  only  this,  the  treat- 
ment of  history  in  connection  with  its  practical 
science,  its  reference  to  the  laws  of  action  arranged 
in  logical  instead  of  historical  order.  These  laws 
however  are  laws  of  the  comparative  strength  de 
facto,  and  validity  de  jure,  of  the  various  feelings  and 
thoughts  of  man.  These  same  laws  are  the  guide 
to  future  practice,  arts  of  action  being  founded,  as 
already  shown,  upon  practical  sciences.  Therefore 
it  is  impossible  to  make  history  a  guide  to  practice 
without  first  taking  it  up  into  science,  and  thence  de- 
ducing the  laws  of  art.  Only  to  the  extent  to  which 
this  is  done  is  any  practical  instruction  reaped  from 
history.  From  this  follows  the  explanation  of  the 
extreme  delusiveness  of  history,  in  the  usual  sense, 
as  a  guide  to  action  or  a  means  of  prediction ;  much 
more  is  expected  from  it  than  is  obtainable,  because 
its  conversion  into  science  has  been  as  yet  so  imper- 
fectly accomplished.  Wherever  the  conversion  has 
been  accomplished,  the  study  is  no  longer  called  a 
history,  but  either  a  science  or  an  art ;  for  instance, 
the  art  of  war,  the  sciences  of  political  economy  and 
comparative  philology.  Even  these  have  not  reached 
the  rank  of  exact  sciences,  partly  because  of  the  im- 
perfect analysis  attained  of  the  group  of  motives  on 
which  each  rests,  but  chiefly  because  of  the  still  more 
imperfect  knowledge  of  the  interference  of  other  mo- 
tives or  groups  of  motives  with  those  constituting  the 
group  itself.  No  single  practical  science  can  reach 
the  position  of  an  exact  science  until  all  of  them  are 
near  reaching  it ;  in  other  words,  the  general  sciences 


4G0  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

bookil      of  ethic  and  politic  must  approach  the  exact  stage 
— "       pari  passu  with  the  special  branches  which  they  in- 

History.  elude, 

6.  To  treat  any  branch  of  human  action  as  history 
simply,  without  seeking  to  refer  the  facts,  as  they  are 
discovered,  to  the  distinctions  of  the  corresponding- 
science,  is  to  treat  it  as  a  matter  either  of  personal, 
biographical,    curiosity   or    of  mere    antiquarian  re- 
search.    But  the  moment  its  facts  are  treated  scien- 
tifically, the  moment  it  is  sought  to  explain  them, 
or  arrange  them  in  scientific  order,  that  moment  the 
history  becomes    scientific,  and  the    study  becomes 
one  of  forward-looking  interest.     In  one  respect  the 
comiection   is   closer  between    science   and  art  than 
between  history  and  science;  science  exists  for  the 
sake  of  art  more  inevitably  than  history  for  the  sake 
of  science ;  the  interest  which  underlies  a  science  and 
its  art  is  one  and  the  same,  an  interest  in  its  special 
object-matter;  while  in  passing  from  a  history  to  its 
science  there  is  a  change  of  interest,  a  change  from 
mere  biographical  or  antiquarian  curiosity  to  an  in- 
terest in  a  special  branch  of  knowledge,  as  part  of  a 
connected  whole.     But  even  such  a  curiosity,  with 
regard  to  a  special  branch  of  history,  will  often  lead 
those  who  feel  it  to  take  an  interest  in  the  subject 
also  as  a  matter  of  science,  to  wish  to  know  not  only 
the  exact  detail  of  the  facts  but  the  reasons  and  causes 
of  them,  and  thence  the  general  laws  of  which  they 
are  instances.    Mere  antiquarianism,  which  is  always 
purely  historical,  becomes  thus  ennobled  by  means 
of  the    special  interest  which  it  takes  in  a  special 
subject. 

7.  Since  however  the  portion  of  the  phenomena 
which,  in  every  practical  science,  remains  historical 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  4 CI 

is  much  L'Ti'oer  than  that  which  has  been  reduced  to       book  it. 

Ch.  IV. 

science,  it  follows  that,  althouo;h  the  treatment  of  the         — 

....  §  97. 

whole  of  the  phenomena  ought  to  be  scientific,  it  is  iiistory. 
an  error  to  expect  that  practical  guidance,  that  accu- 
rate prediction,  from  the  study  Avhich  it  would  afford 
if  it  had  fully  passed  into  the  scientific  stage,  and  had 
entirely  converted  its  history  into  science.  Political 
economy  is  held  to  have  reached  the  condition  of  a 
science,  and  to  be  a  science  as  well  as  an  art.  But 
even  here  the  laws  of  the  science  are  incapable  of 
furnishing  rules  for  guidance  in  detail,  except  hypo- 
thetically ;  in  trade  speculations,  for  instance,  the 
difficulty  is  to  know  whether  the  case  contemplated 
by  the  general  rule  has  arisen.  The  science  of  poli- 
tical economy  is  a  system  of  laws  guiding  the  detailed 
actions  of  its  art  from  a  distance,  by  giving  a  general 
framework  or  logic  under  which  to  arrange  the  phe- 
nomena out  of  which  trade  s})eculations  are  to  be 
made.  To  know  the  history  of  the  case  is  the  real 
difficulty  to  be  overcome ;  as,  for  instance,  the  amount 
of  cotton  in  the  market,  the  amount  which  will  come 
in  from  the  next  crop,  the  changes  in  the  taste  of  the 
public,  the  competition  of  a  new  or  better  manufac- 
tured material. 

8.  So  also  it  is,  and  to  a  far  greater  degree,  with 
the  architectonic  arts  of  ethic  and  politic.  A  still 
greater  portion  of  the  phenomena  of  these  arts  is  in- 
cluded in  history  alone  than  is  the  case  with  those 
of  political  economy.  They  supply  a  logic  it  is  true, 
but,  in  regard  to  the  complicated  and  obscure  ques- 
tions of  daily  life,  public  and  private,  this  logic  con- 
sists of  hypothetical  laws,  the  really  difficult  question 
being  to  know  whether  the  case  contemplated  by 
the  hypothesis,  the  case  for  the   application  of  this 


4G2  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Cif'i"'      ^'^^  ^^  *^^^*'  ^^^'^  arisen;  whether,  m  politic,  it  is  a 
—         time  for  aiming  at  liberty,  or  a  time  for  enforcing 

Historj-,  justice,  by  repealing  or  enacting  this  or  that  special 
law;  whether,  in  ethic,  it  is  a  time  for  throwing  off 
old  observances,  or  a  time  for  adopting  more  strin- 
gent ones,  as  a  means  of  self- education.  It  is  clear 
that  in  politic  the  distance  is  enormous  from  which 
its  logic  sends  guidance  and  help  to  the  decision  of 
details.  And  in  ethic  it  is  equally  unreasonable  to 
expect  the  logician  to  furnish  rules  for  the  guidance 
of  individual  conduct,  which  must  vary  according  to 
the  character  and  circumstances  of  every  individual. 
The  logician  who  attempted  such  a  task  would  beat 
the  air,  either  with  meaningless  platitudes,  or  with 
subtil  but  random  distinctions  and  refinements.  Ex- 
hortation, the  weapon  of  the  preacher,  is  not  his  pro- 
vince; and  beyond  this,  wherever  particular  counsel 
for  particular  cases  can  be  given,  it  must  come  from 
that  practical  wisdom  which  is  the  fruit  of  experi- 
ence, that  is,  from  observations  which  have  not  yet 
been  reduced  to  science.  Even  with  a  logic  of  ethic 
and  of  politic,  and  even  with  one  or  two  undoubted 
special  sciences  of  practice,  the  phenomena  of  history 
still  unreclaimed  bear  an  overwhelming  proportion 
to  those  of  its  science,  the  phenomena  which  cannot 
to  those  which  can  be  predicted,  the  phenomena  in 
daily  life  of  which  we  are  ignorant  to  those  of  which 
we  are  cognisant.  In  proportion  as  this  line  of  sepa- 
ration is  pushed  forwards,  more  questions  are  brought 
under  the  decision  of  loo;ic  ;  and  the  dominion  of 
ethic  and  politic  is  extended  by  every  stroke  which 
extends  that  of  science ;  for  these  are  but  the  main 
branches  of  that  practical  science  into  which  history 
is  converted  by  increasing  knowledge. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  463 


Q.  There  is  tlicn  no  other  science  of  history  but      book  ir 

•^  _        .  ,  "^  Cii.  IV. 

the  practical  science,  still  in  process  of  formation,  of        - — 
which  ethic,  politic,  and  their  subordinates,  are  the       iiiston-. 
members   already  constituted   as  sciences.     But  the 
question  may  be  asked.  How  the  rank  of  science  can 
be  claimed  for  these  portions,  while  it  is  denied  to 
the  whole  which  they  constitute,  and  which  remains 
still  in  the  condition  of  history.     The  answer  to  this 
is  the  following.  —  History  has  two  great  branches, 
its  phenomena  are  of  two  kinds,  physical  phenomena 
which  require  investigation  by  the  physical  and  spe- 
culative   sciences,    and   phenomena   of  consciousness 
w^hich  require  treating  metaphysically.   We  have  come 
round  to  the  point  touched  upon  in  §  4,  where  it  was 
said  that  physical  history,  physiology,  and  analysis 
of  conscious  states,  were  three  great  branches  of  one 
science   of  man,  which   could   only  be   complete  by 
their  combination.      This  entire  group  of  studies  is 
what  we  have  now  called  History.     That  branch  of 
it  which  consists  in  the  analysis  of  conscious  states 
has  been  so  far  pursued  in  Book  I.  as  to  warrant  us 
in  founding  a  logic  of  practice  upon  it  in  Book  II. 
And.  the  logics  of  ethic  and  politic  venture  only  so 
far  as  the  phenomena  of  conscious  action  are  known 
or  thought  to  be  known.     The  filling  up  of  their  out- 
lines, the  carrying  their  laws  out  into  detailed  pro- 
visions, was  expressly  left  in  §  8G.    1-2   for  future 
knowledge ;  and  the  greatest  lack  of  this  knowledge 
is  in  the  physical  and  physiological,  not  in  the  meta- 
physical branch.   It  is  clear  then  that  we  have  neither 
a  Science  of  History,  nor  an  Art  of  Life,  in  all  its 
details ;  but  we  have  a  logic  of  ethic  and  of  politic  so 
far  as  we  have  a  scientific  analysis  of  conscious  vol- 
untary action.      And  the  detailed  art  of  life,  when 


464  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      £ind  as  it   o;rows  up,  will  be  the  continuation  and 

Ch.  IV,  .  .  ^  . 

—         amplification  of  ethic  and  politic,  considered  as  arts, 

History.  just  as  the  science  of  history,  which  will  be  its  foun- 
dation, will  be  the  amplification  of  them  considered 
as  sciences ;  for  physical  and  physiological  phenomena 
come  into  history  only  so  far  as  they  stand  connected 
with  human  action  and  feeling ;  the  scope  of  history, 
and  the  circumscription  of  the  physical  phenomena 
to  be  included  in  it,  are  marked  out  from  a  subjective 
centre;  and  its  science  is  the  completion  of  the  series 
of  the  subjective  and  practical,  as  physiology  is  of 
the  physical  and  purely  speculative  sciences. 
§98-  s  98.   I.  While  disclaiming:  therefore  the   ambi- 

Histoncal  •'  o     ^ 

Science.  tious  name  of  the  Science  of  History,  as  having  to 
express  an  aim  and  a  wish  rather  than  anything  al- 
ready realised,  we  cannot  give  up  the  endeavour  to 
make  history  scientific,  and  thus  raise  it  to  the  desired 
rank.  The  conception  which  we  have  been  led  to 
form  of  it  may  perhaps  be  expressed  by  the  name 
Historical  Science,  or  history  treated  scientifically. 
So  treated,  the  subject  has,  it  has  been  shown,  two 
great  branches;  the  first  including  all  physical  phe- 
nomena which  have  influence  on  man,  phenomena 
which  must  first  be  investigated  separately,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  physical  speculative  science ;  and  the 
second  including  the  j^henomena  of  consciousness,  as 
well  those  of  the  individual  alone  as  those  which  re- 
sult from  his  action  on  and  intercourse  with  other 
individuals,  a  study  also  to  be  pursued  separately 
at  first,  and  then  completed,  along  with  the  former 
branch,  by  studying  the  two  series  of  phenomena  in 
combination,  the  state  in  which  they  are  actually 
presented  in  experience.  Physical  phenomena  may 
ag-ain  be  distino-nished  into  two  orders,  those  which 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


465 


operate  upon  man's  motives  of  action  directly,  as,  for 
instance,  a  fertile  valley  which  attracts  his  settle- 
ments, a  mountain  chain  which  bars  his  pro<2;ress, 
and  those  which  compose  his  physiological  nature,  in 
structure  and  function,  or  which  act  upon  him  by 
modifying  this  nature,  as  climate,  food,  physiological 
peculiarities  of  race,  of  mixed  races,  of  alternation  in 
generations,  and  physiological  causes  of  the  birth  of 
exceptionally  powerful  minds. 

2.  The  distinction  of  the  two  main  branches  of 
historical  science  is  parallel  to  that  which  was  drawn 
in  §  60  between  the  character  of  the  individual  and 
influences  operative  on  the  character.  The  method 
to  which  this  distinction  led,  in  the  analysis  of  the 
individual,  is  equally  commanded  by  the  parallel  dis- 
tinction in  the  case  of  mankind  at  larg-e.  Distino-uish- 
ing  the  physical  and  physiological  influences,  operative 
on  the  individuals  and  the  nations  cdbiposing  man- 
kind, from  the  systems  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
they  mould,  and  which  react  upon  them  in  turn,  it 
is  the  latter  group  of  phenomena  which  we  must  lay 
at  the  basis  of  the  enquiry,  the  changes  of  which 
must  be  the  thread  or  clue  to  which  we  refer  the  mo- 
difying influences.  It  is  these  which  constitute  the 
end  or  purpose  of  historical,  being  practical,  science ; 
it  is  these  therefore  which  we  must  keep  always  in 
view,  whatever  are  the  physical  phenomena  modify- 
ing them.  Accordingly,  the  first  question  to  be  asked 
relates  to  the  normal  course  of  development  of  sys- 
tems of  thouoht  and  feelino;  amono;  mankind,  whether 
there  is  such  an  one  discoverable,  and  in  what  it 
consists.  This  is  the  position  occupied  by  Gomte's 
famous  law  of  the  three  states.  It  is  by  no  means, 
in  my  opinion,  a  law  of  history  as  a  whole;  it  is  a  law 

VOL.  II.  HII 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 

§98. 

Historical 

Science. 


466  LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  ii.      of  the  normal  course  of  development  of  the  character 

Ch.  IV  . 

—  *       of  mankind  srenerally. 

S  98  ... 

Historical  3 .  To  pursuc  liistorical  science  on  either  of  its  two 

great  branches  alone,  exclusively  of  the  other,  is  to 
mistake  its  character  as  well  as  to  narrow  its  scope. 
But  since  it  is  practical  science,  deriving  its  interest 
from  man,  the  danger  of  paying  exclusive  attention 
to  the  branch  of  character  is  greater  than  the  oppo- 
site.    The  danger  on  this  latter  side  is  rather  one  of 
attributing  too  great  potency  to  physical  and  physio- 
logical phenomena,  too  great  modifiability  to  charac- 
ter, than  of  denying  the  influence  of  character  alto- 
gether ;   while  on  the  other  side  there  is  the  danger 
of  treating  the  character  and  its  normal  course  of 
development  as  an  absolute,   its  end  decreed  from 
the  beginning,  and  thus  essentially  independent  of 
physical  circumstances,  or  dominating  them  without 
reaction.  _  NeHher  branch  alone,  how  far  soever  its 
investigations  may  be  successful,  can  be  the  whole  of 
historical  science,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  admit, 
either  that  man  has  no  reactive  power  on  nature,  or 
nature  none  on  man.    The  power  which  nature  exerts 
over  man,  the  extreme  variety  and  remoteness  from 
observation  of  the  forces  which  have  acted  or  may 
act  upon  him,  seem  to  remove  all  hope  of  his  history, 
as  a  whole,  ever  reaching  the  position  of  a  science  of 
prediction.     For  we  have  seen  that  geology  is  not  a 
science  in  this  sense,  §  97.  2 ;  and  all  the  phenomena 
of  geological  science  are  phenomena  also  of  historical, 
being  phenomena  which  condition  the  possibility  of 
man's  existence.     The  physical  branch  of  history  is 
the  one  which  opposes  the  greatest  obstacle  to  its 
ever  ranking  as  a  science  of  prediction.     If  we  dis- 
covered the  course  of  development  of  character  down 


LOGIC  or  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


467 


to  the  most  minute  changes,  if  we  discovered  the  law 
which  governed  these  changes  so  far  as  they  depended 
on  human  feeling  and  thought,  we  should  still  have 
a  science  of  history  conditionally  only,  on  the  con- 
dition of  physical  phenomena  continuing  to  follow  a 
normal  course,  of  which  we  should  have  no  guar- 
antee. 

4.  But  even  apart  from  such  physical  conditions 
as  may  be  called  conditions  of  major  order,  and  as- 
suming that  the  earth  will  continue  to  exist  in  much 
the  same  habitable  condition  as  at  present,  historical 
science  would  still  remain  conditional  with  regard 
to  physical  and  physiological  conditions  of  a  minor 
order.  Earthquake,  famine,  epidemic  disease,  blight, 
storm,  all  the  category  of  so-called  physical  acci- 
dents, are  to  a  very  small  extent  capable  of  bemg 
predicted,  still  less  of  being  averted  or  neutralised. 
Conceivably,  however,  any  of  these  may  change,  in- 
deed for  aught  we  know  may  have  already  changed 
from  what  it  would  other'Wise  have  been,  the  history 
of  mankind,  may  have  barred  its  progress  or  diverted 
it.  And  although  we  might  be  able,  from  a  know- 
ledge of  human  character,  to  say  what  would  be  the 
effect  in  history  of  any  of  the  occurrences  now  men- 
tioned, we  should  still  be  uncertain  when  or  whether 
they  might  happen,  or  whether  others,  new  in  kind 
but  equal  in  potency,  might  not  suddenly  spring- 
forth  from  nature's  arsenal.  We  may  indeed  be 
guaranteed  against  a  new  irruption  of  barbaric  na- 
tions, but  can  we  be  so  against  new  combinations  of 
physical  and  vital  forces  ?  Accordingly,  we  must 
conceive  the  problem  of  historical  science  as  twofold ; 
first  to  discover  the  effect  of  physical  and  physiologi- 
cal circumstances  upon  the  normal  course  of  mental 


Book  II. 
Cn.  IV, 

§98. 

Historical 

Science. 


468  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

^^'h 'iv '      clevelopment,  and  at  different  periods  of  it ;  secondly 

-— -         to  discover  when  and  in  what  measure  these  circum- 

Historical      stanccs  havc  been  or  will  be  brouo;ht  into  operation 

Dcieiice.  ^  ^ 

on  it,  a  question  which  depends  upon  physical  and 
speculative  science. 

5.  At  every  step  in  the  enquiry  the  question 
which  arises  is  distinguishable  into  these  same  two 
branches;  and  each  branch,  followed  up  by  a  further 
question,  again  divides  in  the  same  way,  and  so  on 
perpetually.  This  may  be  seen  in  that  method  of 
treating  history  which  is  certainly  not  without  ad- 
vantages, inasmuch  as  it  is  one  which  keeps  real 
facts  in  view,  and  seeks  solutions  where  there  is  a 
possibility  of  finding  real  antecedents,  namely,  the 
method  of  imag-inino:  some  circumstances  different  in 
actual  events  and  states  of  history,  and  then  endeav- 
ouring to  follow  this  change  downwards  to  the  changes 
it  would  involve  in  the  subsequent  history,  and  then 
again  following  backwards  or  upwards  the  causes 
which  it  would  be  necess^)^  to  imagine  as  anteced- 
ents of  the  imagined  change.  Thus  for  instance  Dr. 
Mommsen  says,  in  his  History  of  Rome,  Book  iv.  Ch. 
V.  (Dr.  Dickson's  Transl.  Vol.  iii.  p.  194,  ed.  1868), 
"  It  is  impossible  to  tell  what  might  have  happened, 
had  the  Cimbrians  immediately  after  their  double 
victory"  at  Arausio,  B.C.  105,  "  advanced  through  the 
gates  of  the  Alps  into  Italy.  But  they  first  overran 
the  territory  of  the  Arverni,  who  laboured  to  defend 
themselves  in  their  fortresses  against  the  enemy ;  and 
soon,  weary  of  sieges,  set  out  from  thence,  not  to 
Italy,  but  westward  to  the  Pyrenees."  This  delay 
on  the  part  of  the  Cimbrians,  he  implies,  may  pos- 
sibly have  saved  the  Roman  power  from  dissolution. 
Following  the  consequences  of  their  supposed  move- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


4G9 


ment  into  Italy,  we  cannot  indeed  see  what  they 
would  specifically  have  been,  but  we  may  see  that 
they  would  have  consisted,  at  each  step,  of  the  mental 
enero;y  of  the  Romans  under  the  influence  of  alarm 
and  confusion,  balanced  against  that  of  the  Cimbrians, 
under  physical  circumstances,  such  as  the  determina- 
tion of  the  battle  ground,  partly  influenced  by  that 
alarm.  Following  the  causes  which  might  have  pro- 
duced the  supposed  movement  into  Italy,  we  may 
see  that  they  are  resolvable  into  the  same  categories, 
want  of  attraction  elsewhere,  insuflicient  quarters, 
personal  influence  of  adventurous  chiefs,  and  so  on. 
The  personal  influence  of  an  adventurous  chief,  how- 
ever, may  depend  partly  on  physiological  causes, 
partly  on  physical  circumstances  which  have  enabled 
him  to  display  his  character,  as  well  as  on  the  at- 
traction of  that  character  on  his  tribesmen.  Now 
the  reversal  or  omission  of  even  the  minutest  circum- 
stance of  actual  history  is  an  impossible  supposition, 
since  natural  laws  are  invariable  and  inevitable  in 
their  operation ;  but  the  use  of  taking  an  illustration 
from  actual  history  is  to  give  definiteness  and  reality 
to  the  circumstances  imao;ined  as  cases  of  o^eneral 
laws.  To  imagine  a  law  as  general  and  to  imagine 
specifically  difi^erent  modifications  of  it  are  one  and 
the  same  thing.  To  take  an  instance  of  a  general 
law  from  actual  history  is  to  abstract,  for  the  time, 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  an  actual,  that  is,  an  inevit- 
ably determined  fact,  determined  by  antecedents  and 
contributing  to  consequences  which  appear  accidental 
and  variable  only  because  the  antecedents  are  un- 
known. The  changes  imagined  in  actual  history  arc 
the  modifications  of  a  general  law,  the  actual  circum- 
stance, changed  from  in  imagination,  being  another 


Rook  U. 
Cii.  IV. 


Historical 
Science. 


470  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

bookil      modification  of  it;  if  illustrations  are  sought  in  actual 
fl-  ■       history,   imagined  changes  of  actual,  unchangeable, 
Historical      cvcnts  are  the  only  means  of  generalising,  for  all 
scientific  or  generalised  arrangement  is  imaginary. 

6.  Historical  phenomena  may  accordingly  be  ap- 
proached in  two  ways ;  first,  from  the  side  of  history, 
beffinninff  with  them  as  a  series  of  actual  events, 
which  is  Mr.  Mill's  Inverse  Deductive  or  Historical 
method ;  secondly,  from  the  side  of  science,  beginning 
with  the  laws  of  human  nature,  which  is  Mr.  Mill's 
Direct  or  Concrete  Deductive  method.  (System  of 
Logic,  Book  vi.  Chapters  ix.  x.  6th  edition).  In 
the  former  case,  we  take  the  facts  known  to  have 
existed,  and  then  seek  their  explanation  by  referring 
them  to  general  laws  of  human  nature ;  in  the  second 
we  attempt  to  construct  or  prove  the  existence  of 
facts,  whether  past  or  future,  whether  as  discovered 
or  predicted,  from  a  previous  knowledge  of  the  gene- 
ral laws  which  must  operate  or  have  operated  at  the 
time  and  under  the  circumstances  in  question.  Al- 
most every  considerable  piece  of  historical  reasoning, 
however,  includes  the  alternate  use  of  both  methods, 
so  that,  as  a  whole,  it  can  only  be  said  to  belong  to 
one  or  the  other  method,  as  the  use  of  either  pre- 
dominates in  it. 

7.  A  brilliant  instance  in  which  the  direct  de- 
ductive method  predominates  is  found  in  Mr.  Mac- 
Lennan's  construction  of  the  early  stages  of  some 
departments  of  human  development,  in  his  Primitive 
Marriage,  Chap,  viii.,  to  which  reference  has  once 
before  been  made.  He  traces  the  development  of 
the  earliest  groups  of  men,  which,  he  shows,  were  or 
were  assumed  to  be  homogeneous,  through  a  stage 
in  which   kinship  through  females  only  was   recog- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


471 


nisecl ;  through  two  stages  of  polyandry,  a  lower  and 
a  higher;  through  a  stage  of  recognition  of  kinship 
through  males  as  well  as  females;  to  a  final  stage 
of  kinship  through  males  only,  the  stage  to  which 
belong  the  agnatic  bond  of  relationship  and  the  patria 
potestas  of  the  early  Eoman  law.  Every  preceding 
stage  contains  the  germ  of  the  succeeding,  every  suc- 
ceeding stage  abolishes  some  features  of  the  preced- 
ing ;  and  the  means  of  progression  are  found  in  the 
ordinary  feelings  and  motives  of  men,  acting  in  the 
ordinary  way  upon  the  circumstances  offered  by  each 
stage.  A  bridge  is  thus  thrown  over  an  early  por- 
tion of  history,  of  which  no  written  record  has  prob- 
ably ever  existed. 

8.  By  whichever  of  the  two  methods  the  pheno- 
mena of  history  are  approached,  their  scientific  treat- 
ment consists  in  generalisation,  in  the  exhibition  of 
the  phenomena  as  a  case  or  cases  under  general  laws. 
The  generalisation  here  intended  is  generalisation 
by  analysis ;  it  does  not  consist  simply  in  making  a 
general  statement  which  will  cover  several  particular 
cases,  actual  or  imagined.  It  is  true  that  the  history 
of  one  nation  is  often  analogous  to  the  history  of 
another,  the  history  of  one  group  of  nations  to  that 
of  another  group,  and  that  history  thus,  as  it  were, 
repeats  itself  with  variations ;  and  farther,  that  these 
variations  of  analogous  cases  supply  our  best  means 
of  discovering  the  general  laws  applicable  to  all.  But 
this  generalisation  is  not  the  scientific  generalisation 
here  intended ;  if  this  were  all,  history  would  not 
be  scientific,  it  would  consist  merely  in  grouping  and 
classifying  phenomena,  not  in  classifying  them  logic- 
ally, that  is,  in  discovering  principles  or  laws  under 
which  they  become  capable  of  classification.     History 


Book  TI. 
Cii.  IV. 

§98. 

Historical 

Science. 


472  LOGIC  OE  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      would  be  in  the  position  of  botany  apart  from  veget- 
—  "       able  physiology.  Just  as  physiology  which  is  founded 

Historical  on  the  analysis  of  the  structure  and  function  of  plants 
is  the  reason  and  explanation  of  the  classifications  of 
botany,  so  the  generalisation  which  explains  the  phe- 
nomena of  history  is  given  by  a  further  analysis  of 
those  phenomena  themselves.  There  is  no  series  of 
historical  phenomena  but  one,  and  the  generalisation 
which  is  to  explain  this  series  must  be  founded  on 
an  analysis  of  the  phenomena  more  searching  and 
minute  than  that  which  arranges  them  into  similar 
or  analogous  groups.  It  is  an  analysis  of  the  very 
same  phenomena  as  those  which  are  to  be  explained. 
The  breaking  up  the  whole  series  into  parts,  into 
histories  of  different  nations,  running  their  course 
simultaneously  or  successively,  and  the  observation 
of  analoo^ies  between  these  histories,  are  the  mere 
preliminaries  of  the  enquiry.  The  history  of  each 
nation  or  state  is  not  to  be  explained  by  pointing  out 
similar  histories  elsewhere,  but  by  a  more  complete 
and  minute  analysis  of  its  own  phenomena.  This 
more  minute  analysis  of  the  very  facts  to  be  ex- 
plained, an  analysis  into  motives  and  their  laws,  fur- 
nishes the  means  of  generalising  them  in  the  sense 
here  intended. 

9.  All  historical  states  and  events  are  composed 
of  human  actions  spontaneous  or  voluntary,  and  the 
only  causes  of  human  actions  are  feelings  in  depend- 
ence on  physical  or  physiological  circumstances.  In 
other  words,  the  analysis  of  the  states  and  events  of 
history  is  into  spontaneous  and  voluntary  actions, 
and  the  analysis  of  these  actions  is  into  feelings  as 
causes  and  effects  of  each  other.  The  feelings  of  men 
are  capable  of  distinction  and  arrangement  in  classes ; 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIEXCES, 


473 


there  is  a  certain  number  of  kinds  of  feeling,  similar 
in  every  individual ;  and  the  varied  play  and  succes- 
sion of  these  feelings  is  that  which  produces  the  ac- 
tion of  individuals  and  masses  of  individuals.  The 
same  feeling  recurs  at  a  countless  number  of  times, 
with  variations  according  to  circumstances,  but  al- 
ways subject  to  certain  fixed  laws  of  change.  This 
enables  us  to  generalise  the  laws  of  feeling  and  of 
action;  and  this  generalisation  is  a  second  classifi- 
cation of  the  phenomena,  by  the  side  of  the  first ;  it 
is  a  classification  of  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
phenomena  in  addition  to  the  classification  of  the 
phenomena  as  wholes ;  and  it  is,  besides,  a  classifica- 
tion of  those  elements  which  are  causes  of  the  pheno- 
mena taken  as  wholes,  or  in  wdiich  the  motive  or  the 
guiding  power  of  the  whole  phenomena  resides.  All 
science  is  ultimately,  or  in  the  last  resort,  analysis; 
but  a  more  minute  analysis  is  the  explanation  of  one 
less  minute. 

lo.  Wherever  phenomena  can  be  thus  analysed 
twice,  or  at  two  stages,  there  the  explanation  is  not 
complete  until  the  second  analysis  has  been  given. 
The  phenomena  of  history  are  of  this  kind ;  they  are 
a  congeries  of  phenomena  which  separately  belong  to 
other  sciences  than  history,  namely,  to  the  physical 
sciences,  to  physiology,  and  to  metaphysic  or  subjec- 
tive analysis  of  states  of  consciousness.  The  expla- 
nation of  them,  therefore,  cannot  lie  within  history 
itself,  in  the  mere  description  and  classification  of  the 
.  phenomena  as  repeated  at  difi^erent  times  and  places 
in  history.  The  explanation  of  such  heterogeneous 
phenomena  includes  the  assignment  of  the  causes  of 
their  coming  together  from  their  triple  source,  and 
assuming  the    shape    of  historical   phenomena ;    and 


Book  U. 
Ch.  IV. 

§98. 

Historical 

Scieuce. 


474  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

BooKiL      these  causes  can  ouly  be  assio-ned  when  the  pheno- 

Ch.  IV.  J  n  i. 

—         mena  have  been  analysed,  each  in  its  own  science; 
Historical      but  the  phenomena  of  ultimate  sciences  are  suscep- 

ScicncG. 

tible  of  no  causal,  but  only  of  an  analytical,  explana- 
tion. Hence  the  phenomena  of  history  are  explained 
when  exhibited  as  cases,  not  of  mere  historical  but 
of  ethical  generalisation,  not  of  a  pretended  predes- 
tined course  of  human  affairs  but  as  results  of  the 
feelings  and  motives  of  individuals,  acting  together 
in  masses  or  mutually  influencing  each  other.  For 
instance,  the  explanation  of  republicanism  in  America 
is  not  found  in  the  existence  of  republicanism  in 
Switzerland  and  in  Greece,  or  in  enumerating  and 
describing  the  differences  characteristic  of  it  in  the 
several  cases,  but  in  the  feelings  and  motives  opera- 
tive in  individual  Americans.  That  similar  feelings 
and  motives  have  operated  in  similar  ways,  at  other 
times  and  places,  is  a  proof  of  the  constancy  and 
force  of  the  motives,  not  an  explanation  of  the  result 
without  them;  without  these  motives  the  additional 
instances  of  the  phenomenon  of  republicanism  would 
be  but  a  multiplication  of  the  phenomena  to  be  ex- 
plained. 

1 1 ,  We  have  now  come  back  to  the  point  touched 
on  in  §  7,  the  relation  between  history,  physiology, 
and  ethic ;  and  it  is  clear  in  what  sense  ethic  is  one 
source  of  history,  in  what  sense  its  phenomena  and 
their  analysis  supply  the  explanation  of  history, 
and  help  to  make  the  entire  study  a  science.  For  it 
is  history  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term,  • 
namely,  a  connected  narrative  of  human  actions,  that 
is  the  third  member,  with  ethic  and  physiology,  in 
the  group  of  sciences  which,  in  §  7,  were  said  to  re- 
quire scientific  treatment  as  a  whole,  before  practi- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


475 


cal  conclusions  could  be  drawn  to  guide  detailed  or 
doubtful  cases  of  moral  and  political  conduct.  This 
group  as  a  whole  is  history  in  the  true  and  wide 
sense  of  the  term,  the  scientific  treatment  of  which  de- 
pends upon  the  previous  and  separate  anal3^sis  of  the 
phenomena  belonging  to  each  of  its  three  members. 
Of  these  three,  however,  ethical  analysis  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  consciousness  is  that  which  is  the  ground- 
work of  the  Avhole,  that  without  which  the  other 
analyses  would  have  no  reason  for  being  entered  on, 
and  if  entered  on  no  bond  of  connection  with  each 
other.  It  is  ethical  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness  which  supplies  the  knowledge  of  that 
organism  which  is  the  object  of  historical  science, 
physical  and  physiological  analysis  which  supplies 
that  of  its  environment.  An  analysis  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  consciousness  must  therefore  be  the  corner 
stone,  or  rather  let  us  say  the  entire  substructure, 
of  the  whole  building  of  historical  science. 

§  99.  I.  When  from  the  point  which  is  now 
reached  we  cast  a  glance  of  retrospect  over  the  whole 
previous  course,  the  reflection  occurs,  that  there  is 
no  science,  no  phenomenon  in  any  science,  which,  is 
not  included  in  the  purview  and  treatment  of  the 
metaphysical  and  subjective  method.  The  whole 
field  of  fact  and  of  knowledge  may  be  organised 
from  a  subjective  point  of  view,  in  its  relations  to 
the  nature  and  desires  of  man.  This  is  clearly  the 
case  with  the  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness as  such,  and  no  less  clearly  with  those  con- 
structive and  practical  sciences  which  are  built  upon 
that  analysis ;  for  the  phenomena  of  these  sciences 
are  nothing  more  than  the  same  specific  and  general 
feelings  which  were  analysed  in  Chap.  ii.  Book  i.,  dif- 


BOOK  II. 

Cii.  IV. 


§98. 

Historical 

Science. 


§99. 

Arrangement 

of  \he 

Sciences. 


476  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  11.      ferentlj  massed  and  connected.     From  the  simplest 

—         distinctions  of  form  and  matter  in  sensations,  of  dif- 

Arrangement    fercnt  sDCcial  scnsations  from  one   another,   to  the 

of  the  ■■■  1  .    1  ^  •  -U 

Sciences.  miiiutest  rulcs  of  conduct  which  may  be  given  by 
ethic  or  by  any  of  the  branches  of  practical  art  in 
subordination  to  it,  the  course  is  uninterrupted  and 
homoofeneous,  the  series  of  sciences  continuous  and 
organic.  All  the  practical  sciences,  then,  depend 
ultimately  on  subjective  and  metaphysical  distinc- 
tions. But  there  is  another  class  of  sciences  and 
phenomena  which  are  more  purely  speculative,  the 
series  of  physical  sciences ;  are  these  also  included 
in  the  purview  of  metaphysic,  capable  of  subjective 
treatment,  capable  of  being  brought  into  the  same 
series,  homogeneous  and  continuous  with  the  prac- 
tical series,  capable  of  organisation  from  the  same 
centre  with  them?  The  answer  must  be,  that  they 
are  so  in  point  of  method. 

2.  All  the  physical  sciences,  from  mathematic  to 
physiology,  in  their  construction  and  organisation  as 
sciences,  in  the  discovery  of  their  phenomena  and 
laws,  and  in  the  arrangement  of  these  phenomena 
and  laws  into  a  hierarchical  system,  are  obedient  to 
the  laws  of  logic,  obedient  to  the  purposes  proposed 
by  that  volition  which  is  reasoning;  laws  and  pur- 
poses which  can  only  be  known  and  comprehended 
by  subjective  and  metaphysical  analysis,  only  modi- 
fied by  a  further  reasoning  which  is  reflection.  The 
very  principle  upon  which  Comte  established  the 
hierarchy  of  these  sciences,  increasing  complexity 
and  decreasing  generality  in  the  phenomena  and  laws 
arranged  by  them,  is  a  logical  principle,  that  which 
is  seen  in  its  simplest  shape  as  the  increasing  inten- 
sion and  decreasing  extension  of  logical  terms,  that 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


477 


which  gave  rise  to  the  logical  categories  of  summum  Book  ir. 
genus  and  infimtc  species  contained  under  it.  (See  -^—' 
"Time  and  Space,"  §  52).  This  logical  principle,  Arrangement 
which  is  applicable  to  all  phenomena  indifferently,  is  Sciences. 
directly  founded  on  the  logical  law  of  Parcimony,  a 
law  for  the  conative  element  in  reasoning ;  and  fulfils 
its  commands  by  holding  together  in  one  view  the 
greatest  diversity  and  multiplicity  of  particulars  with 
the  greatest  simplicity  of  general  conceptions  under 
which  they  can  be  brought.  These  logical  laws  are 
universal  and  necessary,  asserting  their  own  validity 
luicler  all  circumstances,  ruling  the  conceptions  of  the 
Positivist  no  less  than  of  the  Scholastic;  the  error 
of  the  latter  having  consisted,  not  in  holding  fast 
the  logical  framework,  but  in  attempting  to  discover, 
by  examining  and  refining  on  it,  the  phenomena  of 
nature  which,  when  discovered  by  observation,  ex- 
periment, and  reasoning,  would  of  themselves  have 
grouped  themselves  under  it,  and  supplied  the  re- 
finements exemplifying  its  distinctions.  So  far  there- 
fore as  the  physical  sciences  are  methods  or  processes 
of  reasoning,  so  far  as  they  are  practical  sciences  or 
arts  (according  to  the  distinction  in  §  92.  i),  they 
are  members  of  the  same  series  with  those  of  con- 
sciousness and  of  practice,  which  must  be  treated 
subjectively.  Not  only  are  the  phenomena  which 
the  speculative  and  physical  sciences  discover  and 
arrange,  or  which  are  their  object-matter,  objects  also 
of  the  sciences  of  practice,  owmg  to  the  use  which 
may  be  made  of  them  for  human  purposes,  but  these 
sciences  are  themselves  practical  in  their  own  use  of 
the  phenomena  which  are  their  object-matter,  in  re- 
spect of  their  being  methods  and  processes  of  rea- 
soning, which  is  a  process  of  volition. 


478 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  TL 
Ch.  IV. 


§09. 


3.  We  tlius  apply  tlie  distinction  between  art  and 
science,  laid  down  in  §  92,  and  distinguish  by  its 

Arrangement  application  the  wholc  field  of  knowledge  and  of  fact 
Sciences.  into  two  aspccts,  that  in  which  it  is  a  process,  and 
that  in  which  it  is  a  result;  aspects  inseparable  from 
each  other,  and  affording  reciprocal  support.  Every 
science  is  a  practical  method,  and  in  this  respect  is 
a  portion  of  a  subjective  series;  every  science  is  a 
complex  of  actually  existing  phenomena,  and  in  this 
respect  is  a  portion  of  an  objective  series.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  is  indifferent  what  kind  of  pheno- 
mena are  the  objects  of  any  science,  whether  they  are 
physical,  or  whether  they  are  mental ;  as  phenomena 
they  are  objective,  as  method  they  are  subjective. 
States  of  consciousness,  the  object-matter^  of  meta- 
physic  and  of  the  practical  sciences,  are  objective 
phenomena,  as  much  as  the  atoms,  molecules,  and 
masses,  which  are  the  object-matter  of  the  physical 
sciences ;  and  they  need  only  the  completion  and  re- 
cognition of  their  analysis,  and  its  fixation  by  terms 
of  definite  and  accepted  meanmg,  in  order  to  be  re- 
cognised and  treated  as  such  objective  phenomena. 
The  fact  that  they  are  treated  by  reasoning,  that 
they  compose  trains  of  reasoning,  that  they  are  a 
method  of  scientific  sequence  as  well  as  separate  phe- 
nomena, is  that  which  makes  them  members  of  a 
single  subjective  series  in  the  sense  now  intended. 

4.  But  it  must  be  admitted,  that  this  distinction 
of  aspect  only  partially  answers  the  question  with 
which  we  beo^an.  When  we  turn  to  the  differences 
between  the  phenomena  which  are  respectively  the 
object-matter  of  the  physical  and  practical  sciences, 
we  find  them  so  striking  as  to  warrant  the  distinction 
of  two  groups  of  sciences,  of  which  the  physical  may 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


479 


Book  1 1. 
Oil.  IV. 


§99. 


in  one  sense  be  called  objective,  the  practical  sub- 
jective sciences.  We  have  in  this  an  empirical  not 
a  metaphysical  distinction;  two  complete  groups  of  ArrauL^ement 
sciences,  not  two  aspects  of  all  and  every  science.  Sciences. 
So  distinguishing,  the  subjective  method  which  domi- 
nates the  practical  sciences  has  a  less  dominant  func- 
tion in  the  physical.  Although  the  phenomena  of 
each  series  have  both  an  objective  and  a  subjective 
aspect,  and  although  the  method  of  dealing  with  each 
is  logical  and  therefore  subjective,  yet  the  phenomena 
of  the  physical  series  are  best  studied  in  their  object- 
ive, those  of  the  practical  in  their  subjective  aspect. 
It  is  as  if  we  were  examining  the  tapestries  along  the 
w^all  of  a  long  corridor,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  were 
to  examine  them  in  front,  beyond  that  point  were 
to  change  the  side  and  examine  the  remainder  from 
behind.  This  difference  arises  from  the  phenomena 
of  the  physical  series,  atoms,  molecules,  and  masses, 
in  their  interweaving  with,  their  action  and  reaction 
upon,  each  other,  having  been  formed  into  complete 
or  empirical  objects  by  a  process  of  perception  of 
remote  objects  (see  §  13.  2,  4,  and  the  reff.  there 
given)  long  continued  indeed  but  long  ago  forgotten, 
the  results  of  which,  the  remote  objects  themselves, 
the  bodies  in  three  dimensions  of  space,  the  atoms, 
molecules,  and  masses,  remain  alone,  as  a  recognised 
starting  point  for  thought,  as  a  kind  of  existences, 
named  "matter,"  which  may  be  thenceforward  ex- 
amined by  themselves  without  reference  to  the  sub- 
jective history  of  their  original  formation  from  sensa- 
tions of  sight  and  touch  in  two  dimensions  of  space 
or  superficial  extension  (see  §  10.  4,  5).  But  it  is 
the  same  subjective  process  of  formation  which  is  con- 
tinued in  the  combination  of  the  emotions  and,  the 


480 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


§99. 

Arrangement 

of  the 

Sciences. 


growth  of  the  practical  sciences,  and  which  must  be 
examined  for  itself  in  the  analysis  of  their  pheno- 
mena, since  it  has  not  yet  resulted  in  the  formation 
of  complete  empirical  objects  out  of  emotions  and 
images  corresponding  to  those  formed  out  of  sensa- 
tions, which  are  the  objects  of  the  physical  sciences. 
The  phenomena  of  the  practical  series  can  therefore 
only  be  treated  from  their  subjective,  those  of  the 
physical  only  profitably  treated  from  their  objective 
side,  notwithstanding  that  the  method  is  subjective 
in  both,  and  notwithstanding  that  both  classes  of 
phenomena  have  equally  a  subjective  equally  an  ob- 
jective aspect. 

5.  When  therefore  the  sciences  are  distinguished 
empirically  from  one  another,  in  order  to  be  grouped 
in  a  certain  order  or  hierarchy,  it  is  impracticable  to 
arrange  them  in  a  single  series  from  a  single  point 
of  view.  The  series  is  broken  at  the  point  where 
nerve  movement  causes  consciousness;  see  §  49  and 
the  diagram  there  given.  Below  this  point  the  series 
embraces  the  physical,  objectively  treated,  sciences; 
above  it  comes  the  series  of  practical,  subjectively 
treated,  sciences.  Beyond  this  point,  advancing  from 
the  physical  end,  the  objective  treatment  of  the  prac- 
tical series,  that  is,  of  the  several  branches  included 
in  historical  science  in  the  large  sense,  is  an  endea- 
vour to  be  more  fully  realised ;  beyond  the  same 
point,  advancing  in  the  opposite  direction,  the  sub- 
jective examination  of  the  physical  phenomena  is 
also  something  to  be  more  perfectly  attained,  but 
the  means  for  which  are  already  secured,  partly  by 
metaphysical  encpiiries  such  as  those  of  Berkeley, 
partly  by  the  logical  organisation  given  by  Comte. 
But  the  perfect  fusion  of  both  series  into  one,  having 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  481 

in  all  its  phenomena  and  in  all  its  sciences  an  obiec-      boojkIi. 

Cii.  lY. 

tive  and  a  subjective  aspect,  is  not  to  be  expected  -^— ' 
until  the  phenomena  which  are  the  object-matter  of  Arrangement 
the  practical  sciences  have  become  capable  of  objec-  Sciences, 
tive  treatment,  until  history  in  its  large  sense  has 
become  a  science  of  prediction,  at  least  of  prediction 
conditioned  only  by  circumstances  which  were  called, 
in  §  98.  4,  conditions  of  major  order.  The  mode  of 
the  conditioning  of  consciousness,  sensation,  emotion, 
thought,  by  nerve  action,  of  the  conditioning  of  nerve 
action  by  physical  influences,  and  the  order  or  law  of 
these  processes,  for  man  collectively  as  well  as  indi- 
vidually, are  discoveries  which  must  be  made  before 
either  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  can  be  treated 
objectively,  or  history  become  a  science  of  prediction. 
The  order  of  occurrence,  the  place  occupied  by  one 
state  of  consciousness,  defined  by  its  analysis,  in  re- 
lation to  other  states,  in  order  of  coexistence  and 
sequence,  the  knowledge  of  which  depends  on  a  know- 
ledge of  its  physiological  condition,  is  equally  neces- 
sary with  the  subjective  analysis  of  the  state  itself, 
in  order  that  the  treatment  of  it,  and  of  the  series 
to  which  it  belongs,  should  become  objective.  Each 
phenomenon  of  practical  science  must  be  known  in 
its  cause  and  its  consequent  as  well  as  in  itself,  in 
its  history  as  well  as  in  its  nature,  before  it  can  be 
considered  as  an  object  for  its  science  in  the  same 
sense  as  bodies  visible  and  tangible  are  objects  for 
mechanic  or  chemistry.  The  subjective  metaphysical 
analysis  of  states  of  consciousness  is  therefore  but 
the  first  step  towards  the  completely  objective  treat- 
ment of  them.  Whether  this  consummation  is  des- 
tined ever  to  be  realised  may  be  doubtful,  but  it  is 

VOL.  II.  II 


482  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  XL      Dot  doubtful  that   some    steps   towards   it  may  be 
Ch.  IV.  ,  ^  •' 

—         made. 

Arrangement  6.  If  in  the  present  state  of  scientific  knowledge 

Sciences.  it  is  impossible  to  organise  all  the  sciences  into  a 
single  series  from  a  single  point  of  view,  it  is  equally 
impossible  to  deny  the  existence  of  either  series. 
The  unity  which  would  be  thus  effected  would  be  an 
unity  of  a  part  of  the  whole  field  of  knowledge  and 
of  existence,  not  of  the  whole.  There  are  two  groups 
of  sciences  which,  as  yet,  are  only  homogeneous  in 
respect  of  the  common  feature  of  having  a  subjective 
and  an  objective  aspect,  and  in  respect  of  their  logi- 
cal method  as  products  of  reasoning.  The  attempt  to 
coordinate  them  into  a  single  series,  from  a  point  of 
view  supplied  by  their  phenomena,  must  at  present 
fail,  from  the  circumstance  that  some  of  these  phe- 
nomena must  be  treated  subjectively  and  others  ob- 
jectively. History,  for  instance,  ethic,  politic,  and 
their  subordinate  sciences,  cannot  be  added  to  the 
physical  series  as  dependents  on  or  deductions  from 
physiology ;  nor  can  mechanic,  physic,  chemistry, 
physiology,  be  constructed  a  priori  out  of  sensations 
of  sight  and  touch  in  time  and  space  relations,  such 
as  number,  weight,  duration,  magnitude,  velocity,  and 
so  on,  notwithstanding  that  the  object-matter  of  pure 
mathematic,  the  pure  relations  of  space,  time,  and 
number,  have  precisely  the  same  character  whether 
objectively  or  subjectively  taken,  or,  in  other  words, 
notwithstanding  that  their  objective  and  subjective 
aspects  are  indistinguishable  from  each  other;  which 
character  they  owe  to  this,  that  time  and  space,  the 
formal  element,  is  the  one,  unchanging,  common, 
element  in  feelings,  whether  these  are  regarded  as 
portions  of  consciousness  or  as  portions  of  the  world 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


483 


of  objects.  We  must  therefore  be  content  to  regard 
the  great  building  of  science  as  unfinished,  as  pos- 
sibly destined  to  be  unfinished  for  ever.  The  great- 
ness of  the  work  is  its  interest,  and  this  is  perhaps 
the  greater  for  each  removal  of  its  goal,  for  each  re- 
newed perception  of  its  incompleteness. 

7.  Two  attempts  have  been  made  in  the  present 
century  to  organise  the  sciences  into  a  single  series, 
one  from  the  metaphysical,  the  other  from  the  phy- 
sical point  of  view ;  the  former  by  deducing  all  phe- 
nomena and  laws  of  phenomena  from  the  nature  and 
law  of  thought,  and  thus  gathering  up  all  into  a 
single  absolute  or  ontological  system, — which  was 
the  attempt  of  Hegel ;  the  latter  by  excluding  meta- 
physical enquiries  altogether,  as  a  worn-out  method, 
from  the  hierarchy  of  positive  sciences, — which  was 
the  attempt  of  Comte.  I  have  given  in  "  Time  and 
Space,"  §  45,  my  reasons  for  rejecting  the  Hegelian 
metaphysical  Ontology;  but  this  is  not  the  only 
alternative  of  the  physical  ontology  of  Positivism. 
There  is  a  metaphysical  positivism ;  a  metaphysic 
which  is  not  ontology,  a  positivism  which  is  not 
exclusively  physical,  of  the  existence  of  which  the 
physical  positivists  have  not  been  aware.  They  have 
been  unaware,  apparently,  how  much  was  contained 
in  their  own  admission  of  the  relativity  of  human 
knowledge;  they  have  passed  over  the  conceptions 
of  Berkeley  and  of  Kant,  confounding  both  in  their 
condemnation  of  the  a  priori  method  of  deducing 
physical  phenomena  from  the  laws  of  thought ;  they 
have  supposed  themselves  to  have  a  beginning  of  spe- 
culation in  the  conception  of  body,  or  as  it  is  usually 
called  "matter,"  a  beginning  which  is  in  truth  as 
much  an  Absolute  as  Hegel's  pure  thought  itself. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  IV. 


§99. 

Arrangement 

of  the 

Sciences. 


484  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  n.      xiie  reaction  against  metaphysical  ontology  has  car- 

7—         ried  them  too  far,  and  forced  them  into  an  opposite 

Arrangement    extrcme,  into  an  ontology  of  a  different  kind ;  their 

of  the  _     '  ^-^  _  \ 

Sciences.  analysis  has  not  been  sufficiently  searching,  their  pur- 
view of  phenomena  not  sufficiently  comprehensive. 
They  have  denied  too  sweepingly  the  metaphysical 
truths  contained  in  the  ontology  which  they  rejected, 
affirmed  too  sweepingly  the  all-sufficience  of  the  phy- 
sical truths  contained  in  the  ontology  which  they 
asserted.  For,  if  they  should  reply  that  they  main- 
tain no  doctrine  about  the  nature  of  "matter,"  but 
are  content  to  leave  it  as  beyond  our  faculties,  and 
therefore  are  not  ontologists,  they  place  themselves 
in  this  dilemma:  either  they  maintain  such  a  doc- 
trine, and  then  they  are  ontologists,  or  they  abstain 
from  maintaining  any  doctrine  on  the  point,  and  then 
their  system  is  incomplete,  a  scientific  not  a  philo- 
sophical one.  The  only  philosophical  doctrine  about 
"  matter"  which  is  not  ontological  is  necessarily 
metaphysical. 

8.  It  remains  then  to  bring  the  sciences  of  the 
practical  series  into  harmony  with  those  of  the  phy- 
sical, by  means  of  metaphysical  conceptions,  the  only 
conceptions  which  are  common  to  both,  or  can  be 
applied  to  harmonise  them  without  doing  violence 
to  those  of  the  sciences  themselves.  And  as  a  first 
step  towards  this  harmony,  the  order  of  the  prac- 
tical sciences,  and  their  relation  to  metaphysic,  must 
here  be  given.  For  this  purpose  two  things  are 
requisite,  the  method  must  be  subjective,  and  the 
distinctions  must  be  metaphysical  not  empirical.  We 
have  seen  that  the  whole  series  of  the  sciences,  di- 
vided though  it  be  into  two  portions,  one  the  phy- 
sical, one  the  practical  or  conscious  portion,  is  never- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


485 


theless  a  single  series  with  a  double  aspect,  suhjective 
and  objective.  The  physical  portion  is  eminently  ob- 
jective, the  conscious  eminently  subjective;  but  the 
whole  series  may  be  approached  in  either  manner, 
and  from  either  portion.  The  relativity  of  all  phe- 
nomena is  thus  the  fundamental  fact  which  deter- 
mines the  double  series  of  sciences,  each  traversing 
the  same  ground  in  opposite  directions;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  fact  that  every  phenomenon  has  a  double 
aspect,  subjective  and  objective,  is  the  cause  of  there 
being  two  ways  of  treating  it,  that  is,  in  all  the  phe- 
nomena taken  together,  two  series  of  sciences.  Now 
what  mathematic  is  to  the  objective  series  that  meta- 
physic  is  to  the  subjective,  besides  and  apart  from 
its  position  at  the  head  of  the  subjective  treatment 
of  both;  it  is  the  analysis  of  consciousness  in  two 
great  branches,  analysis  of  its  Formal  and  of  its  Ma- 
terial element;  and  upon  these  depends  the  rest  of 
the  series,  consisting  of  sciences  which  are  all  less 
general  than  metaphysic,  and  derive  from  it  their 
logic.  First  comes  pure  logic,  then  the  logic  of 
ethic,  then  of  politic  and  history,  then  of  the  differ- 
ent branches  of  politic  and  history,  then  of  the  sci- 
ences which  treat  man  as  an  individual,  such  as 
medicine,  then  of  the  different  material  arts,  which 
consist  almost  entirely  of  results  obtained  from  the 
sciences  of  the  objective  series.  These  sciences  them- 
selves, the  logic  of  which  is  thus  derived  from  meta- 
physic, still  await,  in  many  cases,  even  their  forma- 
tion, but  in  all  their  combination  into  a  hierarchy 
such  as  Comte  has  supplied  for  those  of  the  objective 
series.  Such  is  the  order,  as  yet  only  partially  re- 
alised, of  the  sciences  which  belong  to  the  practical 
or  conscious  series. 


Book  H. 
Ch.  IV. 

§99. 

Arraiif^etnent 

of  the 

Sciences, 


486  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  XL  9.  The  groupmg  of  the  sciences  of  both  series  is 

-^— '       then  the  following.     Metaphysic  itself,  as  a  separate 

Arian£rement    body  of  clistinctions  and  doctrines,  or  as  a  particular 

Sciences,  positivc  scicncc,  thc  ccntrc  or  central  moment  of  which 
is  the  act  or  moment  of  self-consciousness,  the  Ich 
denke,  distinguishing  the  Object  from  the  Subject, 
stands  at  the  head  of  both  the  objectively  and  the 
subjectively  treated  series;  the  sciences  of  both  alike 
ultimately  hold  of  Metaphysic.  Mathematic,  which 
is  the  first  or  highest  science  in  the  objective  series, 
having  pure  space  and  time  relations  for  its  object- 
matter,  an  object  given  only  by  a  metaphysical  dis- 
tinction, is  as  much  subjective  as  objective  in  its 
method;  its  verification  is  subjective  and  objective 
at  once.  But  the  remaining  sciences  of  the  objective 
series  are  only  to  be  profitably  treated  objectively, 
their  object-matter  consisting  of  concrete,  empirical, 
remote,  objects,  each  of  which  is  known  and  distin- 
guished as  such  by  its  name,  and  the  laws  of  which 
must  be  learnt  by  objective  observation  and  experi- 
ment. The  sciences  in  the  subjective  series,  on  the 
other  hand,  can  be  treated  only  by  the  same  sub- 
jective method  as  metaphysic  itself,  that  is,  by  subjec- 
tive observation  and  analysis,  verified  by  external, 
empirical,  and  in  this  sense  objective  facts,  which 
again  must  be  subjectively  interpreted.  Here  it  is 
not,  as  in  the  objective  series,  the  nature  and  se- 
quence of  external  facts,  but  the  nature  and  sequence 
of  internal  feelings,  which  are  the  object-matter  of 
the  sciences.  Their  connection  with  metaphysic  is 
uninterrupted,  not  merely  in  respect  of  their  method 
being  logical  and  logic  having  its  laws  discovered  by 
metajDhysic,  but  also  in  respect  of  their  distinctions 
being  metaphysical,  and  their  object-matter  consist- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  487 

ino;  of  states  of  consciousness,  treated  as  such,  and      ^P'^'^J^^- 

'-'  _  J  '  Ch.  IV. 

not  as  empirically  separate  objects.  — - 

lo.   Next  as  to  the  first  of  the  two  requisites  of   Arrangement 

^  of  the 

the  method  of  ordering  the  sciences  of  the  conscious  Sciences, 
series,  namely,  that  it  must  be  subjective.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  conscious  sciences,  with  their  sub- 
jective method  of  treatment,  is  a  fact  which  becomes 
more  and  more  prominent  in  the  history  of  science 
and  philosophy.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  take  the 
cardinal  instance  of  the  relation  between  ethic  and 
politic.  The  term  '  state'  no  longer  means  a  social 
and  pohtical  structure  independent  of  the  individuals 
who  compose  it,  and  to  the  supposed  advantage  of 
which  the  advantage  of  the  individuals  must  be  made 
to  conform;  it  is  a  collective  term  for  the  individuals 
themselves  in  certain  relations  to  each  other,  and  its 
structure  is  confessedly  to  be  adapted  to  their  ad- 
vantage. Nor  is  Comte's  view  any  exception  to  this 
universally  admitted  doctrine.  Now  the  adoption  of 
the  subjective  point  of  view  is  the  only  logical  basis 
for  this  reversal  of  the  ancient  relation  between  poli- 
tic and  ethic.  (See  §  3).  The  logical  treatment  of 
the  two  sciences  in  connection  compels  their  subjec- 
tive treatment,  and  in  this  way;  man  in  society  is, 
logicall}^,  a  part  of  the  whole  subject  of  man  gener- 
ally, his  social  nature  a  logical  subdivision  of  his 
nature  as  a  whole;  but  the  treatment  of  man's  nature 
as  a  whole  is  Ethic,  that  of  his  social  nature  Politic. 
Ethic  however  was,  and  indeed  still  is,  a  science  re- 
quiring subjective  treatment,  while  politic  had  been 
long  objectively  treated,  as  having  for  its  object  a 
social  structure  independent  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing it.  To  subordinate  politic  to  ethic  was  there- 
fore to  treat  politic  in  the  only  way  also  applicable 


488  LOGIC  OV  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      to  ethic,   that  is,   subjectively.      The  old  objective 

— —         method  was  now  recognised  as  illogical;  for  to  take 

Arrangement    man  as  a  part  of  society,  and  the  community  as  the 

Sciences.  wliolc  of  which  the  individuals  were  parts,  was  to 
take  both  empirically;  the  individual  as  an  empirical 
part  of  an  empirical  aggregate,  as  a  body  among 
bodies,  although  at  the  same  time  (as  it  happened)  a 
body  endowed  with  powers  of  locomotion,  sensation, 
emotion,  and  thought.  The  logical  point  of  view  on 
the  other  hand  coincided  with  the  subjective,  and 
together  they  supplied  the  possibility  of  organising 
the  practical  sciences  of  ethic  and  politic  in  a  scien- 
tific as  opposed  to  a  merely  historical  manner.  To 
subordinate  politic  to  ethic  is  therefore  not  only  re- 
quired by  logic,  but  also  itself  requires  in  turn  the 
adoption  of  the  subjective  method. 

II.  As  to  the  second  of  the  two  requisites,  the 
employment  of  metaphysical  and  not  empirical  dis- 
tinctions is  involved  in  the  use  of  the  subjective 
method;  for  the  moment  any  phenomenon  is  taken 
subjectively,  from  the  simj^lest  state  of  consciousness 
to  the  most  complex,  two  elements  at  the  least  are 
found  inseparably  involved  in  it,  form  and  matter ; 
and  this  inseparable  union  of  elements,  in  every  phe- 
nomenon, determines  the  necessity  of  metaphysical 
and  not  empirical  distinctions  being  employed  in  all 
subjective  science,  just  as  the  universal  relativity  of 
all  phenomena  determines  the  necessity  of  a  series  of 
subjective  sciences.  Accordingly,  the  chief  objection 
which  I  have  to  urge  against  Comte  is,  that  while  his 
method  has  become  subjective,  his  distinctions  remain 
too  completely  empirical.  The  instance  I  shall  take  in 
proof  of  this  is  a  capital  one,  since  it  lies  at  the  basis 
of  his  conception  of  the  future  order  of  humanity; 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


489 


the  foundation  for  his  practical  construction  of  which 
may  be  seen  laid  in  his  Tableau  Systematique  de 
I'Ame,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Politique  Positive. 
He  there  distinguishes  eighteen  cerebral  organs,  ten 
of  which  are  emotional,  five  intellectual,  and  three 
practical,  corresponding  respectively  to  principle  or 
motive  of  conduct,  means,  and  result ;  or,  as  he  also 
expresses  it,  to  impulse,  counsel,  and  execution;  or, 
as  he  again  varies  the  expression,  to  the  heart,  the 
mind,  and  the  character.  That  is  to  say,  he  first 
separates  the  functions,  and  then  brings  them  into 
reciprocal  action  on  one  another ;  the  fact  being,  that 
not  one  of  these  functions  but  includes  in  itself  one 
or  both  of  the  others,  thus  forbidding  its  separation 
from  the  others,  though  only  as  a  preliminary  to  its 
future  recombination  with  them  by  means  of  reci- 
procal action.  In  short  we  find  here  the  fiimiliar 
psychologist's  distinction  of  feeling,  cognition,  and 
volition ;  and  that  too  fixed  in  separate  cerebral  or- 
gans appropriated  to  each.  Comte  then  has  not,  in 
my  opinion,  carried  metaphysical  distinction  far 
enough,  but  has  given  us  general  characterising  terms 
instead  of  ultimate  analytical  distinctions,  and  thus 
added  a  new  complication  to  the  problem  which  he 
proposed  to  solve. 

12.  Let  us  finally  fix  our  attention  once  more 
upon  the  sciences  of  both  the  series  taken  collectively, 
and  endeavour  to  discover  the  law  of  their  alternately 
subjective  and  objective  treatment.  There  are  three 
stages,  or  methods,  through  which  every  science,  or, 
what  is  the  same  thing,  every  group  of  phenomena, 
passes ;  stages  not  destructive  of  each  other,  but 
superposed,  each  subsequent  one  recognising  and  in- 
volving, or,    in    Hegelian    language,  aufhebend,    its 


Book  H. 
Cii.  IV. 

§  '■>'■)• 

Arrangement 

of  the 

Sciences. 


490  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

Book  II.      antecedent. — The  first  stage  is  purely  objective ;  when 
^i— '       phenomena  are  observed  without  reflection  ;    when 
Arrangement    their  subjcctivc  sidc  is  iiot  perccivcd  as  such,  its  ex- 
Sciences.      istcncc  not  suspcctcd,  but  phenomena  appear  as  im- 
mediately present  to  the  observer,  no  question  asked 
as  to  how  or  why  there  should  be  phenomena  at  all. 
This  stage  is  seen  in  children  and  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  mankind. — The  second  is  when  reflection  has 
arisen,  when  both  sides,  subjective  and  objective,  are 
perceived,  the  knowledge  of  phenomena  distinguished 
from  the  reality,  as  it  is  called,  the  subjective  know- 
ledge from  the  objective  truth.     While  sciences  are 
in  this  stage,  either  side  of  the  phenomena  may  be 
taken,  followed  up,  and  reduced  to  scientific  organisa- 
tion, accordmg  to  the  exigences  of  the  object-matter ; 
"matter"    requiring    objective,    "mind"    subjective 
treatment  (par.  4) ;  but  neither  side  being  separable 
from  the  other,  except  by  abstraction  for  the  pur- 
poses of  examination. — The  third  is  when  both  sides 
are  equated,  and  brought  to  be  perfectly  expressible 
either  in  subjective  or  in  objective  terms;  when  the 
phenomena  which  have  been  treated  objectively,  those 
of  the  physical  sciences,   are   seen  to  be  resolvable 
into  sensations  of  sight  and  touch  in  three  dimen- 
sions of  space,  and  the  phenomena  which  have  been 
treated  subjectively  are  seen  to  be  capable,  not  only 
of  subjective  analysis,  but  also  of  dynamical,  empi- 
rical, historical    arrangement,    in    dependence    upon 
phenomena  of  the  physical  sciences.     With  regard 
to  these  subjective  phenomena,  the  attainment  of  this 
third  stao-e  is  the  attainment  of  a  second  or  double 
objectivity,    one   which    changes    yet   preserves   the 
objectivity  of  the  first  stage.     With  regard  to  the 
phenomena  of  the  physical  sciences,  this  third  stage 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  491 

is  the  attainment  of  a  second  subjectivity,  the  first      bookii. 

'^  -  '  Ch.  IV. 

having  been  involved,  but  unsuspected,  in  the  objec-         — 
tivitv  of  the  first  stao-e.     But  throuo-hout  the  whole    Arrangement 

•^  °  '='  ,  of  the 

process,  the  two  aspects  are  permanent  and  insepa-  Sciences. 
rable;  so  that  the  attainment  of  the  second  objectivity- 
is  not  a  return  to  the  blind  objectivity  of  the  first 
stage,  not  a  laying  down  but  an  incorporation  of  sub- 
jectivity, henceforth  never  to  be  laid  aside.  To  sup- 
pose that  it  can  be  laid  aside,  to  imagine  an  objective 
without  a  subjective  aspect  of  phenomena,  in  other 
words,  an  Absolute,  is  either  to  hold  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  or  it  is  an  actual  falling  back  into  the  first 
and  rudest  stage  of  intelligence.  Bare  existence  it- 
self, the  Sepi-Nichts  of  Hegel,  is  a  bare  notion  of 
existence,  that  is,  subjective  as  well  as  objective. 

§  100.  I.  The  importance  of  the  establishment  of       §100. 

■^  ^  _  _     ^  The  relativity 

the  complete  and  exhaustive  relativity  between  con-  of  Existence, 
sciousness  and  objective  existence  cannot  be  over- 
rated. It  is  the  corner  stone  not  only  of  metaphysic 
but  of  all  science,  of  all  branches  of  human  thought, 
feeling,  and  action.  Now  it  is  only  the  metaphysical 
conception  of  this  relativity  that  is  complete  and  ex- 
haustive, and  consequently  fitted  to  be  such  a  corner 
stone  of  science.  When  Auguste  Comte,  blaming 
Kant's  metaphysical  conception  of  it  as  inexhaustive, 
which  in  a  certain  respect  it  was,  proceeds  to  give 
his  own  view  of  relativity,  we  find  that  he  conceives 
it  as  a  relation  between  the  human  living  organism 
and  its  environment ;  and  the  complete  establishment 
of  this  relativity  he  conceives  to  consist  in  showing, 
first,  the  dependence  of  the  organism  on  the  environ- 
ment, secondly,  the  mutability  and  gradual  develop- 
ment of  intelligence  within  the  limits  of  the  organism, 
assuming  the  organism  to  remain  unchanged  in  its 


492 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  IL 
Ch.  IV. 


§100. 
The  relativity 
of  Existence. 


general  constitution.  (Philosophie  Positive,  Le9on 
58,  Vol.  vi.  pages  618-623,  ed.  1864,  a  passage  be- 
ginning A  cette  appreciation  logique,  and  ending  et 
des  lors  une  consecration  dogmatique.) 

2.  Now  in  the  first  place,  the  metaphysical  rela- 
tivity between  subject  and  object,  as  I  conceive  it, 
(§  13),  has  nothing  to  do  with  either  the  mutability 
or  the  immutability  of  intelligence  ;  whether  there 
was  a  fixity  in  certain  perceptions  or  conceptions, 
or  in  their  elements,  or  whether  there  was  no  such 
fixity,  in  either  case  the  merely  general,  character- 
ising, truth  of  the  relativity  between  consciousness 
and  its  objects  would  remain  untouched.  In  the  se- 
cond place,  the  conception  of  the  relativity  between 
organism  and  environment  is  no  escape  from  the 
conception  of  an  Absolute  ;  unless  the  relativity  is 
between  consciousness  and  objects  of  consciousness, 
between  knowledge  and  things  known,  the  absolute 
is  not  eliminated  ;  because  the  two  things  between 
which  the  relativity  is  established  are  both  of  them 
objects  of  consciousness,  both  of  them  things  known; 
and  therefore  to  establish  a  relativity  between  them, 
however  thorough -going,  is  merely  to  distinguish  the 
absolute  into  two  parts,  in  the  present  instance  or- 
ganism and  environment,  in  other  cases  mind  and 
matter,  or  to  make  two  absolutes  instead  of  one.  We 
may  call  this  an  empirical  relativity. 

3.  The  shortcoming  of  the  empirical  relativity  con- 
sists in  this,  that  it  does  not  eliminate  the  Unknow- 
able from  science ;  it  leaves  in  the  unknown  parts  of 
the  uneliminated  absolute,  (for  of  course  the  merely 
unknoAMi  is  to  everyone  infinite),  a  possible  existence 
which  is  unknowable,  unknowable  and  yet  possibly 
existing.     It  says :  Our  knowledge  is  limited  by  our 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PEACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


493 


organisation  and  circumstances;  beyond  these  limits       Book  ii. 
we  cannot  know  anythino;  •  but  what  existence  there         — 

"^     .  .  §  100. 

may  be  beyond  them,  into  this  we  have  not  the  iwwer    The  relativity 

of  ExistGucG 

to  enquire,  nor  is  it  worth  while  to  do  so.     Thus  is 
admitted  the  possibility  of  an  existence  in  relation  to 
which  there  is  impossibility  of  knowledge.     Now  it 
is  true  that,  even  on  this  view,  it  may  be  a  counsel 
of  true   prudence   and   wisdom   to   abstain   from   at- 
tempting the  enquiry  into  such  a  possible  existence, 
and  to  limit  thought  to  positive  methods,  and  to  ac- 
tual existences  whether  known  or  as  yet  unknown. 
This  in  fact  is  the  continual  exhortation  of  the  posi- 
tivist  school.     But  suppose  any  one  to  be  unwilling 
to  attend  to  this  exhortation,  to  be  bent  on  changing 
the  limits  between  what  is  now  supposed  possible 
and  what  is  now  supposed  impossible  to  knowledge,  to 
come  forward  with  a  Revelation  from  that  admitted 
possible,  though  unknowable,    Existence, — where  is 
the  defence,  what  is  the  repl3^,  of  positivists,  holding 
merely  an   empirical  relativity,    to   such   speculative 
incursions  ?     1  confess  that  I  see  none.     They  have 
left  behind  them  an  inexhaustible  officina  miraculo- 
rum.     And,  the  possible  existence  of  an  unknowable 
once  granted  to  those  who  may  be  interested  in  the 
Revelation  of  it,  all  the  arguments  would  at  once  be 
brought  into  play  which  show,  and  show  irresistibly, 
that  to  conceive  an  existence  possible  is  eo  ipso  to 
have  some  knowledge  of  that  existence,  whereby  the 
previous  admission  of  its  being  unknowable  would  be 
sophistically  reversed.      But  such  sophistry  is  ren- 
dered once  for  all  impossible  by  the  equation  of  pos- 
sible knowledge  and  possible  existence,  that  is,  by 
the  metaphysical  relativity  between  consciousness  and 
its  objects. 


494 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


Book  II. 
Ch.  IV. 


4.  The  tendency  to  believe  in  an  Absolute  is 
perhaps  more  deeply  rooted  in  human  minds  than 
The  relativity  anything  which  is  not  itself  part  and  j^arcel  of  the 
nature  of  mind.  Belief  in  it  is  the  strongest  of 
merely  habitual  and  hereditary  beliefs.  Behef  in  an 
absolute,  or  in  objects  as  absolute,  is  the  name  given 
by  metaphysicians  to  the  first  unreflecting  attitude 
of  the  mind  in  presence  of  objects  or  states  of  con- 
sciousness. (§  99.  11).  Its  characteristic  is,  that  it 
uses  the  word  "is"  or  "am,"  or  the  term  "existence," 
as  if  their  meaning  required  no  further  explanation. 
Depth  or  intensity  of  impression  in  the  speaker  is 
what  they  really  signify,  not  his  analytical  knowledge 
of  the  thing  which,  he  says,  exists  or  is ;  "It  is,  aye 
that  it  is!"  which  is  Plato's  ro  ov,  ro  ovrcog  ov.  Now 
to  show  that  every  case  of  existence  is  also  a  case  of 
consciousness,  which  is  the  metaphysical  refutation  of 
belief  in  an  absolute,  or  the  metaphysical  relativity, 
leaves  entirely  untouched  this  depth  or  intensity  of 
impression.  The  world  is  just  as  real  and  as  true 
after  perception  of  the  distinction  as  before.  It  is 
the  old  attitude  of  the  mind  in  presence  of  objects  and 
states  of  consciousness,  an  attitude  as  if  they  had  a 
separate  existence,  or  were  "  things-in-themselves" 
not  modes  of  consciousness,  that  is  now  exchanged 
for  an  attitude  which  brings  them  into  homogeneity 
with  the  mind ;  without  any  diminution  of  their 
reality  or  intensity  of  meaning,  notwithstanding 
that  the  old  expressions  "  it  is,  aye  that  it  is,"  to 
ovrag  6V,  and  so  forth,  contained  undistinguished 
both  significations.  The  world  is  the  same  world  as 
before,  except  that  a  veil  of  Maya  has  been  lifted, 
a  menti  gratissimus  error  removed. — It  may  be  re- 
marked here,  that  the  Cjuestion  as  to  the  real  exist- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  495 

ence  of  "  matter,"  so  much  debated  since  Berkeley's       p^^'^.y^- 
time,  has  two  distinct  heads,  1st,  as  to  the  real  ex-         — — 
istence   of  "  matter   as  we  perceive   it,"  independent   The  relativity 

'■  '  ^  _  of  Existence. 

of  the  perceiving  mind,  2nd,  as  to  the  real  existence 
of  "matter  per  se,"  or  the  miknown  substratum  of 
matter  as  we  perceive  it.  If  '''  matter  as  we  perceive 
it"  is  not  a  mere  orderly  phantasmagoria  in  the  per- 
ceiving mind,  it  has  behind  it  (so  it  was  thought) 
an  unknown  substratum,  "matter  per  se,"  as  one 
limb  of  the  cause  of  perception,  or  of  "  matter  as  we 
perceive  it."  For  that  the  mind  contributes  some- 
thing to  that  perception  was  admitted  on  all  hands ; 
and,  if  it  did  not  contribute  all,  the  other  part  must 
come  from  "  matter  per  se,"  or  matter  not  known  to 
be  as  we  perceive  it.  To  save  the  real  existence  of 
"matter  as  we  perceive  it,"  recourse  was  had  to  the 
conception  of  "  matter  per  se,"  which  had  to  be  con- 
ceived as  more  real  than  "  matter  as  we  perceive  it," 
and  as  one  cause  of  its  existence  as  we  perceive  it. 
Hence  the  question  as  to  the  real  existence  of  "  mat- 
ter," the  ovTdjg  ohaia  of  it,  is  the  same  question  as  that  of 
the  real  existence  of  "  matter  per  se,"  or  an  unknown 
substratum  of  matter.  But  in  truth  this  substratum 
can  never  be  more  real  than  "  matter  as  we  perceive 
it,"  because  it  is  but  an  inference  from  that  percep- 
tion. The  thing  of  which  we  are  immediately  certain 
is  "matter  as  we  perceive  it,"  apart  from  all  question, 
— and  this  is  the  important  point, — as  to  its  depend- 
ence or  independence  on  the  perceiving  mind.  Of 
this  no  one  doubts;  and  this,  and  this  alone,  is  the 
firm  and  ultimate  basis  of  all  philosophy,  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  the  material  world. 

5.  There  are  two  chief  sources  of  belief  in  an 
absolute,  or  rather  the  objects  which  are  believed  in 


496  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 

^ooK  II.  as  absolutes  are  grouped  naturally  under  two  heads. 
Ch^.  rpj^^  ^^g^  comprises  all  visible  and  tangible  matter, 
TheleiSvity  or  remote  objects  of  perception  formed  out  of  these 
of  Existence,  gg^^^^^ions,  that  is,  "  matter"  in  its  popular  sense,  and 
motion  in  that  matter.  The  effect  upon  sensation  of 
such  visible  and  tangible  objects  is  so  powerful  and 
so  inevitable,  that  we  cannot  shake  off  the  belief  in 
their  separable  existence,  that  it  overshadows  the  per- 
ception of  their  being,  in  the  analysis  of  their  nature, 
modes  of  consciousness.  And  this  belief  is  farther 
strengthened  by  the  proof,  given  in  the  special  phy- 
sical sciences,  that  all  phenomena  are  due,  in  the  last 
stage  of  physical  analysis,  to  combinations  of  such 
"  matter,"  atoms  and  molecules,  in  various  modes  of 
motion.  The  second  group  is  founded  on  the  per- 
ception of  pleasure  and  pain,  in  all  the  various  modes 
of  consciousness  in  which  they  come  forward.  No- 
thing can  be  indifferent  to  us  in  this  respect.  Plea- 
sure and  pain  we  cannot  ]3ut  feel,  often  most  intensely, 
and  cannot  attain  to  a  state  of  not  caring  whether 
we  feel  them  or  not.  The  ideal  state  of  some  schools 
of  Hindu  moralists  consists,  as  is  well  known,  in  such 
a  state  of  not  caring  for  pleasure  or  pain.  We  are 
led  therefore,  just  as  in  the  case  of  visible  and  tan- 
gible matter,  to  believe  in  the  separable  existence  of 
something  causing  pleasure  and  pain,  to  believe  in 
pleasure  and  pain  as  absolutely  inherent  in  the  nature 
of  things,  in  consequence  of  their  inevitableness  and 
their  importance  to  us.  And  from  this  comes  the 
belief  in  the  special  absoluteness,  so  to  speak,  of  cer- 
tain kinds  of  pleasure,  according  as  they  are  judged 
to  be  of  special  moral  worth  and  dignity;  as,  for 
instance,  the  special  absoluteness  of  the  pleasure  of 
morality,  or  of  the  pleasure  of  religion,  together  with 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


497 


the  objects  of  these  pleasures,  duty  and  God.  Such 
are  the  two  forms  which  the  popular  belief  in  an 
absolute  has  taken  in  Europe ;  as  to  a  possible  abso- 
lute founded  neither  on  "  matter"  nor  on  pleasure 
and  pain,  such  as,  for  instance,  the  philosophical  ab- 
solute of  the  Hindu  systems  mentioned  above,  or  the 
Substance  of  Spinoza,  it  does  not  concern  us  here ; 
all  such  cases  will  be  found  to  elevate  some  abstract 
mode  or  object  of  thought,  conceived  as  underlying- 
other  more  obvious  modes  or  objects,  into  an  abso- 
lute, separable,  or  independent.  Existence,  without 
thinking  it  necessary  to  explain  what  may  be  the 
meaning  of  the  term  '  existence'  itself. 

6.  All  such  beliefs  in  an  absolute  are  precluded 
by  the  conception  of  the  complete  relativity  and  co- 
extensiveness  of  consciousness  and  its  objects,  of  the 
subjective  and  objective  aspects  of  phenomena.  The 
two  characteristics  of  that  conceptiori,  to  which  it 
owes  its  precluding  power,  may  be  mentioned  here. 
The  first  is,  that  the  two  kinds  of  elements  in  all 
phenomena,  the  material  and  the  formal,  are  con- 
ceived as  equally  and  alike  objective,  equally  and 
alike  subjective;  instead  of  being  referred,  as  they 
have  usually  been  hitherto,  one  to  the  mind,  as  the 
subjective,  the  other  to  things  external  to  the  mind, 
as  the  objective  element,  in  consciousness  or  in  the 
world.  (See  "Time  and  Space"  §  11).  The  second 
characteristic  is  the  infinity  of  the  world  or  of  con- 
sciousness, freed  from  the  apparent  contradiction  of 
their  finiteness  when  fixed  on  by  volition,  as  a  defi- 
nite object,  or  concept,  for  the  purpose  of  reasoning. 
("Time  and  Space"  §  17).  These  two  points  or 
traits  in  my  method  of  conceiving  the  relativity  of 
consciousness  and  its  objects  will  be  found,  I  think, 

VOL.  II.  KK 


Book  TI. 
Ch.  IV. 


§100. 
The  relativity 
of  Existence. 


498  LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


of  Existence. 


Book  II.  a  Sufficient  guarantee  for  the  exhaustiveness  of  that 
^^'  relativity.  But  I  would  add  that,  whenever  relativity 
ThejekUvity  of  the  subjectivc  and  objective  aspects  of  pheno- 
mena comes  under  review,  the  true  meaning  of  that 
doctrine  cannot  be  understood  without  connecting  it 
with  the  distinction  between  nature  and  history,  or, 
what  in  this  case  is  the  same,  between  the  statical 
and  metaphysical  view  of  phenomena,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  dynamical  and  empirical  view  of  them 
on  the  other,  which  has  been  given,  at  some  length, 
in  §  13.  6-9,  of  the  present  work. 

7.  If  truth  is  important  in  important  matters,  I 
cannot  but  think  that  it  is  important  to  weigh  thor- 
oughly the  validity  of  the  old  conception  of  an  abso- 
lute with  that  of  the  new  conception  of  an  exhaustive 
relativity  between  consciousness  and  its  objects,  or, 
in  other  words,  between  consciousness  and  existence 
in  any  and  every  shape.    Knowledge  is  not  narrowed, 
a  domain  once  possessed  is  not  cut  off,  by  this  con- 
ception ;  rather  what  was  once  the  absolute  is  included 
in  a  relation,  and  the  bounds  of  knowledge  and  of 
existence  at  once  extended.     Everything  that  could 
be  thought  of  before  as  belonging  to  absolute  exist- 
ence can  be  thought  of  still,  and  with  more  definite- 
ness  and  security  of  aim.     Analysis  is  substituted  for 
a  search  into  Causes ;   the  last  word  of  science  is 
Analysis.     Enough,  I  think,  has  been  brought  for- 
ward, in  the  course  of  the  foregoing  enquiry,  to  show 
that  morality  and  religion  at  least  have  nothing  to 
fear  from  analysis,  though  it  should  be  a  more  search- 
ing one  than  the  present.     I  cannot  myself  conceive 
it  possible  that  they  should.     Were  it  possible,  they 
would  not  possess  that  eternity  of  promise  which  is 
one  of  their  essential  characteristics. 


LOGIC  OF  THE  TRACTICAL  SCIENCES.  499 

8.  Vain  are  the  fears  of  the  danger  to  arise  from      Book  n. 

Oh.  IV. 

overturnino'  doctrines  which  have  hitherto  been  be-  — ' 
lieved.  Turn  to  the  various  religious  systems  of  the  The  relativity 
world ;  what  do  we  see  ?  The  same  human  nature 
working  everywhere  to  similar  results,  with  similar 
conceptions,  similar  emotions,  and  through  similar 
stages  of  development.  It  is  not  the  doctrines  held 
from  time  to  time,  though  they  may  be  felt  at  the 
time  as  an  indispensable  embodiment  of  the  morality 
and  the  religion,  which  are  the  guarantee  of  its  per- 
manence and  of  its  progress.  It  is  the  human  nature, 
their  parent,  which  is  the  guarantee.  Those  who 
complain  of  new  theories  as  dangerous  to  religion 
or  morality  do  too  much  honour  alike  to  the  new 
theories  and  to  their  own.  To  the  new  as  having 
power  to  alter  the  course  of  nature,  to  their  own  as 
essential  to  its  maintenance.  If  the  course  of  nature 
establishes  religion  and  morality,  they  are  established 
beyond  the  power  of  any  theory  to  overturn  ;  if  it 
does  not,  no  theory  has  power  to  establish  them.  In 
a  better  sense,  and  as  the  ground  of  hope,  we  may 
apply  Gloucester's  words  in  King  Lear,  "  Though  the 
wisdom  of  nature  can  reason  it  thus  and  thus,  yet 
nature  finds  itself  scourged  by  the  sequent  effects." 
The  same  nature,  the  same  mental  constitution  and 
laws  of  its  working,  which  lead  us  to  make  virtue  and 
truth,  morality  and  religion,  important  matters,  will 
also  secure  their  development.  It  is  upon  this  consti- 
tution as  it  really  is  that  the  development  depends,  not 
upon  the  philosophical  theories  which  may  be  formed 
of  it.  Their  function  is  performed  if  they  strive  to 
attain  a  true  conception  of  what  that  constitution 
really  is  ;  their  end  is  reached  so  far  as  they  attain 
it ;  and  from  their  truth  to  fact  all  their  efficacy  is 


500 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


ch°1[v  '  derived.  But  in  a  logical  sense,  and  not  only  so  but 
—  in  a  practical  sense  also,  those  theories  are  the  most 
of  Exi^*'^^'^  valuable  which,  while  giving  back  a  true  conception 
of  the  facts,  give  it  back  also  in  the  simplest  form,  a 
form  into  which  it  is  impossible  to  introduce  distinc- 
tions more  subtil  than  its  own,  like  faultless  armour 
invuhierable  by  the  sharpest  edge  of  doubt.  Such 
a  theory,  if  it  could  arise,  would  be  not  only  true  but 
known  and  felt  to  be  so ;  being  the  result  of  all  the 
past,  it  would  have  the  promise  of  all  the  future ; 
repose  and  confidence  would  be  in  its  keeping,  hope 
would  bloom  under  its  shelter. 

9.  The  great  aim  of  all  philosophy,  an  aim  which 
is  its  ethical  justification  as  the  pursuit  of  a  hfe,  is 
to  give  unity  of  conception  to  all  branches  of  know- 
ledge, as  the  basis  of  unity  of  action.  The  unity  must 
extend  to  all  conceptions  in  the  individual  mind,  as 
the  condition  of  uniting  individuals,  and  finally  na- 
tions, in  the  same  philosophical  system  and  the  same 
general  plan  of  action.  It  must  be  an  unity  which 
contains  and  allows  for  all  possible  differences,  whe- 
ther of  character  or  of  creed,  assigning  them  their 
place  in  the  history  of  belief,  and  their  function  in 
the  direction  of  practice.  No  partial  philosophy  can 
fulfil  these  conditions.  The  philosophical  task  of 
the  present  century  has  been  one  of  construction; 
but  this  is  not  a  task  which  can  be  completed  at  a 
blow.  The  foundation  had  been  laid  by  Vico.  But 
there  was  still  needed  much  critical  and  destructive 
work,  which  the  last  century  suj^pHed.  The  two 
great  constructive  minds  of  this  century  have  been 
Hegel  and  Comte ;  both  aimed,  but  by  different  me- 
thods, at  an  all-embracing  system  of  philosophy ;  and 
Comte  may  be  regarded  as  the  Andersseyn,  the  Nega- 


LOGIC  OF  THE  PRACTICAL  SCIENCES. 


501 


tion  of  Hegel.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  system 
is  complete  in  itself;  each  finds  its  completion  only  in 
ideas  peculiar  to  the  other.  The  task  of  the  future 
is  to  combine  the  two  contradictories  in  a  system 
which  shall  be  the  Truth  of  both,  a  system  at  once 
metaphysical  in  its  method,  positive  and  experimental 
in  its  content.  Such  at  least  is  the  problem  imme- 
diately to  be  solved,  whatever  be  the  next  step  which 
may  be  revealed  and  proposed  by  its  solution.  To 
contribute  in  some  measure  to  this  solution  has  been 
the  endeavour  of  the  present  work. 


Book  II. 
Cii.  IV. 


§100. 
The  relativity 
of  Existence. 


THE  END. 


LONDON : 
ROnSON  AND  SONS.  PRINTERS.  PANCRAS  ROAD,  N.W. 


Tills  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 


Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


""''»B 


AA    000  506  759    o 


